Presents
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Ororo befriends a lonely little girl living on the estate beside Xavier's. But does the girl trust her enough to come to her when she really needs help? FINISHED. Rated R for later content. Read, review please! Thanks!
1. Default Chapter

                Ororo pushed open the gate to her rose garden, taking a deep breath of the flowers' fragrance before putting on her gloves. The summer storm had blown over, taking with it the heat and humidity of the day, and there was still enough daylight for her to tend to them. She had to tie them up before the weight of the blossoms on the branches torn loose from the trellis broke off.

                She clipped off the last piece of twine a little later, and was about to push off her knees when something caught her eye. She reached under a rosebush, ignoring the scratches she accumulated on her arms in the process, and grabbed for the thing she saw. It resisted, and she yanked harder.

                She thought it was a scrap of cloth, but when she got it out she saw it was a pale blue ribbon tied around a bundle of rose stems. The storm winds had tossed the bouquet around, and most of the blossoms had lost their petals, but one still remained; a beautiful, fragrant, pure white blossom of the variety called Margaret Merril.

                Ororo stared at it, puzzled. She didn't grow this kind of rose in her garden; they were difficult to grow in this soil. Where had it come from? She examined the stem. The cut was fresh, and there was some clear plastic caught on a thorn, as if whoever had left it in her garden had wrapped the stems in plastic. Because of the rain, she couldn't tell if the plastic had had water in it, but she was fairly certain it had. She sat back on her heels, ignoring the rain on the ground that was dampening the knees of her jeans, and regarded the rose curiously. She didn't realize someone was calling her name until Rogue appeared under the trellis. "Hey, sugah, yah forget dinner?" Then she saw the tattered bouquet. "Where'd that come from?"

                "I have no idea," Ororo said, standing slowly and dusting her knees off with one hand as she continued to look at the bouquet thoughtfully.

                "Could one of the guys be playin' a trick on yah?" Rogue asked, holding the gate open as Ororo drifted through it absently.

                "I do not know," Ororo said. Rogue followed the tall African woman into the kitchen.

                Ororo studied the ribbon. "It looks like a little girl's hair ribbon," she said,  "And it has been used."

                "How'd yah know?" Rogue peered at the ribbon.

                "There is a crease right here, where there would be if the ribbon were tied around something often." Wondering, Ororo untied the ribbon, separated the broken flowers from the single perfect stem, and opened a cupboard, taking out a small bud vase and putting the rose in it. As she prepared her dish for dinner, she thought about that rose.

                She went to sleep with the fragrance of that rose filling her attic room, still wondering where it had come from.

                The next day was sunny, but the ground didn't dry out until almost mid-afternoon. Ororo came in from shopping with Jean and Rogue, put her purchases down, and picked up her gardening gloves. She might as well go and do a better job on the climbing roses on the trellis.

                She closed the back door and put on her wide-brimmed straw hat. As she rounded the corner of the mansion, she saw the gate swinging open. And as she went up, trying to remember if Rogue had closed it the previous evening, she saw another bouquet sitting on the bench, tied with a pretty lavender ribbon. She hurried across the garden and snatched it up.

                There was a tiny scrap of paper tied to the bouquet with the ribbon, and she inspected it carefully. It read, "I'm sorry the others got broken. I didn't know the storm was coming." There was no signature.

                They were the same roses as before, the Margaret Merril. There was plastic wrapped around the stem, and the plastic held a small quantity of water. Whoever had left the bouquet obviously wanted her to have them still fresh.

                And the plastic was still warm, as if the hands that had brought it here had only just recently left it.

                Ororo crossed the garden quickly, scanning the surroundings. Maybe the giver was still here, somewhere, checking to see if she got her gift? But she didn't feel the little prickling feeling one always felt when someone was watching.

                Her eyes went down to the bouquet, and then focused on something else, just beside the toe of her shoe; a small footprint in the slightly muddy ground beside the gate. Forgetting everything else, Ororo followed the footprints.

                They didn't lead to the mansion, as she expected. These footprints went out through the grassy south lawn, down the slight incline to the lake that bordered Charles's property, and then went around the margin of the lake. Ororo picked up speed, and as she rounded the trunk of the ancient willow that marked the end of Xavier's property, she saw a flash of denim-clad leg and long brown hair. "Wait!" she called.

                The figure turned, and Ororo got a fleeting glimpse of wide brown eyes before the legs started carrying their owner away at a much faster pace. Ororo called on her powers and used a small breeze to lift her into the air. The figure was running faster, and Ororo picked up her own speed.

                She came to a stop on the top of a grassy hill leading up away from this side of the lake. The figure…a little girl, Ororo now saw…was trying to get up the hill at a run, and wasn't being very successful. "Child, I won't hurt you," she said. "I wanted to thank you for the roses."

                The girl looked up, saw Ororo at the top of the hill, and gasped in surprise. Her hands, clutching at clumps of grass to help her up the steep slope, let go, and she slid halfway down the hill before her momentum stopped. Ororo put the bouquet down on the grass and sprang lightly down the hill after the girl, reaching her where she lay on the grass and holding out her hand. "I'm sorry," she said gently. 'Did I startle you?"

                "Kind of," the girl said, pushing herself up without Ororo's assistance. She stood for a second, eyes glued to the ground shyly, twisting her fingers together, then suddenly blurted, "I'm sorry for trespassing. I won't do it again, honest."

                Ororo went to one knee in front of the little girl and touched the small shoulder. "I am not angry, child. I saw the remains of the other bouquet last night, and I have been trying all night to figure out who had left them there. I saw your footprints by the gate, and I followed them. It was you, was it not?" the girl nodded, still not looking up. Ororo sighed. "Please look up, child. I am not angry. Really."

                Slowly, the girl looked up, and Ororo saw her face plainly. The child wasn't as young as she had thought; She had estimated her at about eight or nine, due to her short stature; but her eyes, face, and, now that she could see it, the front of her body, indicated a girl about twelve or thirteen. The girl had shoulder-length, blunt-cut brown hair and a pair of startling blue-violet eyes, set in a heart-shaped face with soft lips that curved downward. She exuded an air of almost painful shyness, and Ororo found herself wanting to alleviate that shyness. "I am Ororo," she said, holding out her own hand in greeting.

                "I…I know," the girl said, gazing directly into Ororo's eyes with her disconcerting indigo ones. "I've watched you in your garden a lot of times. I've heard your friends call your name."

                "You have been watching me?" Ororo raised an eyebrow, and the girl's eyes returned to the ground.

                "Yes," she said softly. "I could see your garden from my bedroom window when I came here, and I can get so lonely sometimes, all by myself. I wandered down here one day when you had the red-haired man in there helping you prune."

                "Red hair…Oh, you mean Remy!" It took a moment for Ororo to figure that one out. Remy's hair looked brown inside the mansion, under artificial lights. But when he got outside under the sun his hair would turn auburn. As the summer wore on, his hair would be bleached so light by the sun it would seem red to a casual observer.

                "Yes, the man who speaks French. He seems to like you very much. I wish I had a friend like that." And the girl sighed as they started walking.

                Ororo smiled gently. "I will be your friend. But it would help if you told me your name."

                The girl looked earnestly up into Ororo's face. "Promise you won't laugh?"

                "Why would I laugh?" Ororo frowned.

                "The kids at my old school did. They called me all kinds of names."

                "What is your name?"

                "Joette. I prefer Joey, though. You can't make as much fun of that."

                "But that is a lovely name, child," Ororo said, distressed on the child's behalf. "Why would someone make fun of it?"

                "My mother…" There was an odd hitch in the girl's voice. "My mother loved irises. When I was born my father gave her a big bouquet of them, and among them were irises called Joette. They were the exact color of my eyes, so Mother named me that."

                "Your mother has wonderful taste," Ororo said. "I have some of those irises in my greenhouse…and they are the exact color of your eyes. They are very beautiful."

                "My mother died several months ago," the girl said softly, reaching down to pick up the forgotten bouquet of white roses. "They couldn't find anyone else to take me, so they tracked down my father and told him he had to. He wasn't happy." She looked up. "He brought me here, and gave me over into the care of a nanny. He hired me tutors, and then he disappeared. I haven't seen him since I came here two months ago."

                Ororo looked up, and blinked. They had been walking while she talked, and without her realizing it they had come up on the back lawns of the mansion that was Xavier's closest neighbor. It was a huge, old gray stone structure, with none of the modernization that had transformed the Xavier property into the sprawling complex of buildings it was today. The house looked as it had since the early 1900's. She remembered hearing the name of the property owner mentioned once or twice, but had forgotten it. "Who is your father?"

                "Henri LeFevre. My mother was French/American, her name was Elise Gourand. We moved to France after Mother and Father divorced when I was six. I lived there for seven years."

                "Your English is perfect," Ororo said admiringly. "My friend Remy is Cajun French, and he speaks with much more of an accent than you do."

                "Oh, I can speak French too. I had to learn to speak it when I was in France. But I'm not very good at it." She stopped. "This is my house here. There's nobody but me, the housekeeper, six servants, and my two tutors and _ma gouvernante_ here." Her governess, Ororo's mind translated, her nanny. She had picked up enough French from Remy to understand that much.

                "Where do you get the roses?" Ororo asked. She didn't see anything resembling a garden here.

                Joey smiled. "Come this way." She led her around the side of the house, and there, tucked away under several trees at the bottom of a long, downward sloping grass lawn, was a small greenhouse. She took a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and led Ororo inside.

                The mingled scents of fragrant roses, jasmine, magnolias, tulips, orchids, and a myriad of other flowers reached Ororo's nose. She sniffed the fragrant air of the greenhouse, admiring the way the scents all seemed to compliment one another, and not clash. "Your gardener is doing a wonderful job."

                "There is no gardener." Ororo looked down at the girl sharply, wondering if Joey was joking, but the girl was completely serious. "This is my place. When I came here I saw it, and the plants in it weren't being tended, so I asked Father if I could have the greenhouse. I love plants, and gardening, and especially flowers. He told me I could do whatever I liked and told me to ask the landscaper for flowers and whatever else I wanted. So I did."

                Ororo looked around. There was an awful lot of work, and time, invested into this little sanctuary. "You must work in here often," she said.

                "It's the only place I feel truly at home," Joey said, a little sadly. "It's the only place that's really my own. I can get away from the whole world here, close everyone out and just be me. I'm not comfortable in the house; it's too big, and empty, and lonely, and Mrs. Seward, the nanny who is in charge of me, doesn't like me much. I don't like her. If Father would only come home I could tell him I'm not happy with her and ask him to find someone new, but he hasn't come home since I got here, and I have no one to ask."

                At that moment, a voice broke into the peace and quiet of the greenhouse. "Joette! Joette! Damn that child, where is she? Joette!"

                Joey hurriedly stepped out of the greenhouse, taking the key from her pocket and locking the door after Ororo got out. "I'm here, Mrs. Seward."

                The woman stopped and stared at Ororo, standing beside Joette. "And who is this?"

                "I am Ororo," Ororo stepped forward and held out her hand. "I live next door to you. I was taking a walk and ran into Joey. We got into a discussion of plants and flowers, and she offered to show me her greenhouse."

                The woman stared disapprovingly at the little girl, and Joey wilted almost visibly. Ororo could almost see her withdrawing into herself again. "You terrible child, interrupting someone like that and dragging her off into that little sweatbox you like so much! And what have you been doing, you're all muddy and messy! Go inside at once. Mr. Kingsley is looking for you for your math lesson."

                Joey stared at the ground. "Can I change first?"

                "'May I change first, Mrs. Seward!' Honestly, you'd think you were still living in that little backwoods French town, the way you talk! Have you forgotten about the manners I have tried to teach you?"

                Joey shrank almost visibly. "May I go and change first, Mrs. Seward?" she asked in a tiny voice.

                The woman put her hands on her hips and frowned. "If you are going to ruin your clothes like that don't expect me to wash them! No, you've gone about with dirty clothes so far, you can very well go the rest of the day without changing! You will not change until you take your bath tonight, understand? Afterward, you will take your regular meal in your room, no dessert, and you will go straight to bed! There will be no TV tonight, and if I catch you reading under the covers with a flashlight again I'll take your books away, and you'll be confined to the house for the rest of the week."

                Joey's eyes flew up to meet the woman's. "Please, Mrs. Seward, don't ground me. The roses need to be pruned this week, and if I don't do that this week I won't have early roses next spring!"

                "As if I care about your precious roses!" the woman said scathingly. "If you paid half as much attention to your math as you did those stupid flowers, your tutor wouldn't be as upset! But if you don't want to be grounded, get into that house right now and go get your books together. Mr. Kingsley is waiting in the library for you." Joey ducked her head, her face pink, and nodded once to Ororo before scampering off toward the house.

                "I'm sorry," the woman said coldly to Ororo. "She is a most exasperating child, running off at odd hours to play with her stupid plants. I regret that she has disturbed you in your walk. She will be punished for it." And she started to turn away.

                Ororo was so startled at this sudden diatribe that the other woman was almost out of earshot before she said, "Wait. I was not at all bothered; in fact, I quite enjoyed her company. Would anyone mind if I came tomorrow after Joey's lessons were over to see her?"

                The woman started at Ororo. "And what would a grown woman like you want with a silly little child like her? Don't bother about her. And please, don't call her Joey. It's a name for a boy, not a proper young lady. Mr. LeFevre introduced her to me as Joette, and that is what I will continue to call her until he says otherwise."

                "But may I come to see her?"

                The woman shook her head. "She is fine. You need not bother about her. Good evening, Miss." And the woman swept stiffly away, heading for the house at the top of the hill.

                Ororo stared at the woman's retreating back. No wonder Joey didn't like her; her abrasive personality and cold demeanor would cow any child, and on a sensitive little girl like Joey, the effect would be like putting a black cloth over a lamp. Very little of Joey would come through. Apparently, Joey's excessive shyness wasn't all due to her own demeanor; it was due to unfamiliar surroundings and poor handling. Ororo began to wonder who her father was, who could be so blind to his daughter's personality.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ororo finished the lunch dishes quickly the next afternoon and hurried outside. Bypassing her garden altogether, she hurried off to the lake, and strolled around the margin, hoping to see the little girl coming. There was no Joey.

She waited almost an hour before venturing across the boundary toward the house on the hill. She wasn't sure if she would be welcome to knock on the front door, however, given the nanny's disposition from the day before. A sudden thought made her veer across the back lawn to the greenhouse.

As she got closer, she heard the faint sound of singing. And it was Joey's voice. She'd never win any contests, Ororo decided after listening for a couple of minutes, but she wasn't the worst singer in the world. Nothing like Remy in the shower. Her mouth curved in a tiny smile, and she tapped lightly on the greenhouse door. "Joey? Are you in there?"

The singing stopped abruptly, and a second later the door opened. "Miss Ororo? Is that you?" She smiled down into Joey's wide, delighted eyes. "It is you!" She seized Ororo's hand eagerly and pulled her in, closing the door quickly. "I thought maybe Mrs. Seward had told you not to come here anymore! Did she say it was okay?"

Ororo shook her head. "No. She did not. But I am not her charge; I do what I wish. And if I wish to see you, that is what I will do."

"She told me not to see you again."

"And do you always do what she tells you to do?"

Joey smiled. "Not all the time. Depends on what it is. And what the punishment is if I don't do what she says."

Ororo grinned. "It was not too bad wearing wet clothes last night, was it?" she asked.

Joey ducked her head and shrugged. "I've experienced worse." Abruptly changing tacks, she said, "I was going to prune back some of the spring roses today. Would you help me?"

"Of course," Ororo said. "But here. Put this on first." And she took from one of her pockets a smock. It was an old one of hers, a smock that she wore while she was gardening so that dirt and plant clippings wouldn't soil her clothes.

"Oh, wow!" Joey took it. "I wanted one of these, but Mrs. Seward wouldn't get one for me. She said it was an unnecessary cost and she wouldn't budget for one. Thank you, Miss Ororo!"

"You are welcome, child. Now, let us have a look at the roses."

She worked companionably alongside the child, listening to the little girl's voice prattle happily on about her flowers, the weather, and her former life in France with her mother. Ororo listened, made quiet responses at appropriate intervals, and in the meantime wondered more at what the girl wasn't saying. There was no mention of what she did during the day; no mention of her current life and activities. And the omission disturbed Ororo more than she cared to admit.

They stopped for a break some time later, and Ororo looked at her watch. "My Goddess, we have been at this almost two hours now. Aren't you tired?" she asked the girl.

Joey looked up, eyes wide and shook her head. "Are you?"

"I could use a break," Ororo admitted, sitting down on an overturned plastic milk crate and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

Joey reached behind another crate and brought out a plastic bottle of water, which Ororo took and sipped gratefully. "I'm sorry I don't have any snacks for you," she said regretfully.

"What?" Ororo lowered the water.

"I've seen you in your garden. Last week your friend, the woman with the white streak in her hair…she brought out a picnic basket while you were working and you and she sat down and had lunch outside." Joey sighed enviously. "I wish I could do that. I'd love to be able to eat lunch outside sometimes, when it's really nice, and listen to the birds and the wind while I eat."

"Why don't you?"

Joey got up off the crate and busied herself with the roses in a planter on the other side of the greenhouse so Ororo wouldn't see her expression. "Mrs. Seward says it's dirty out here, and the germs will get into the food."

Ororo stood up and walked over to where Joey was standing. "And you do not agree. But if she won't let you have meals, perhaps you could bring snacks out here…"

"I'm not allowed to have snacks. I had to sneak the water out here."

Ororo blinked. "No snacks?"

"Mrs. Seward says junk food is bad for me. It will make me fat. I get oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, except Sundays; it's either eggs and sausage or pancakes and bacon on Sundays. Then it's tuna salad, bologna, or chicken noodle soup for lunch. And dinner is beef stew, slices of roast beef or chicken and potatoes, and corn or beans or peas." Joey sighed, and looked off into space for a second. "I miss living in France. We'd have turnovers, or croissants for breakfast, or French toast that Mama used to make; and lunch was subs, or peanut butter and jelly, or we'd go out and have burgers and fries or hot sandwiches at the local deli. And Maman would let me have hot chocolate, or chips, and dinner was whatever we wanted." She sighed. "I miss having pizza, and the hot dogs! I miss the big foot-long hot dogs with chili and cheese and pickles and mustard and ketchup and big greasy fries with cheese or gravy or ketchup on them."

Ororo grinned. "Have you ever had Cajun sausage?" she said.

Joey grinned. "I love the spicy kind."

Ororo smiled. "Remy makes a very good Cajun sausage. The butcher he goes to down in Greenwich village uses a unique blend of spices, and once in a while Remy will go down there and buy a lot, and he will cook that up with fried rice and red beans and it is very good. There are never any leftovers on the night when he makes that."

Joey sighed. "I wish I could taste some. I miss the foods I used to have with _Maman_."

"What do you miss the most?"

Joey sighed. "Oh, gosh, I can't decide. Pizza, I guess. Chocolate. Big soft pretzels with cheese. Peanut butter jelly sandwiches. Corn on the cob. Huge greasy burgers with fries, cheesesteak subs, soda, lemonade, apple pie, doughnuts, ice cream…my favorite is strawberry… and spaghetti with meatballs, and chili, and…there's too much I miss," she turned back to her plants with a wistful look. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling."

"It's all right, child," Ororo said gently. "What time are you usually free in the afternoons?"

Joey stared up at the roof as she spoke aloud. "Well, I'm up at six, and I have breakfast at seven. At eight I go and have lessons until twelve. Then I have lunch, and three more lessons, which are over at two in the afternoon. I usually come out here and work in the greenhouse until dinner at five o'clock. At six I go and do my homework, and study and read until eight, then I go for my bath, and afterward I have a half-hour of free time until I have to be in bed at nine."

"So you have three hours in the afternoon." Ororo digested this quietly. "I could use some help in my garden about this time of year. Why not meet me at the willow by the lake around two-thirty tomorrow? Unless you have something else you have to do."

"No, I'm pretty much done here for a couple of weeks," Joey said, pushing a strand of hair back from her forehead. "Really, I don't put in all that much work on them. I come out here to get away from them in there," she waved at the house. "I just…I need time for myself, time when no one is watching me to see if I'm making a mess, or not being ladylike. And I hate that."

"Joette!" Joey almost jumped as she heard Mrs. Seward's voice floating out at them over the still lawn. "I have to go," she said. "Wait until I've gone before you leave; if she sees you I'll be grounded. I'm not supposed to see you anymore. She'll be mad if she finds out you're here." As she spoke, she was shimmying out of her smock and storing it hastily away under the crate that she had hidden the bottle of water back in. She pulled a key out from under her shirt, a key on a chain, and handed it to Ororo hurriedly. "Lock the door when you go, please?" And then she was off, running across the lawn toward the house.

Ororo waited until the girl had disappeared toward the house, and counted to ten slowly before stepping out. It seemed strange to be sneaking around like this; but she was a former thief, after all…and Joey seemed so very lonely, and in need of a friend. Ororo couldn't think of a reason why she shouldn't become friends with the girl; she couldn't figure out why anyone should be so adverse to the idea of her becoming friends with Joey.

She made her way back to the mansion, still thinking, and was washing her hands at the kitchen sink when Remy came in. "What's up, _chere_?" he said teasingly as he went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of soda. "You look pensive."

"You are going out tomorrow, aren't you?" Ororo asked instead of answering him.

"_Oui_," Remy said. "Why?"

"Could you stop at the butcher's in the Village and pick up a pound or so of the Cajun sausage? And cook it the way you usually do?"

Remy frowned. "De butcher only make de sausage on de day I'm comin', chere," he said with a touch of regret in his voice. "He not goin' to have any tomorrow. _Je suis desole_."

Ororo sighed. "I shall have to see what else I can do, then," and she opened the refrigerator door, examining the contents.

"What you plannin' t'do, chere?" Remy put his soda down and looked at her curiously.

Ororo closed the refrigerator door. "I met a child yesterday," she began, and proceeded to tell Remy about Joey. Remy hitched himself up on the counter and sat with his legs dangling over the edge, listening to Ororo talk and taking sips from his soda while he did so.

"I do not understand the people she lives with," Ororo finished. "She lives as though she were in a military camp, not a mansion. She is desperately lonely, dislikes the adults around her, and has no fun. I do not know how her father could leave her in a situation like that. I invited her over tomorrow afternoon to get her to help me with my garden, and I wanted to allow her to have some of the foods she says she misses."

"How old is she?_ Treize_?"

"Twelve, I think," Ororo said.

Remy made a dismissive noise. "I stop by de pizza place an' pick up a couple of pizzas. Some soda, too; Coke, maybe. I know teenagers; dey could live on pizza." He shook her head. "Shame she don't get to have fun. Wan' me to stop by the _chocolatier_ on my way back and pick up some _chocolat?_"

Ororo smiled. "She did say she misses that," she said. "If it is not too far out of your way, I would appreciate it."

"Remy can do dat," he said. "An' may I join you two? Remy kin' of curious about her too. I been seein' her hangin' 'roun' de back garden for de las' couple o' months; she int'res' me too."

"You have seen her?" Ororo looked at Remy.

"Eh, little glimpse here an' dere," Remy said. "She very shy. She hide behin' dat old oak all de time, an' watch you an' Rogue working. She look like she want to come up an' say somet'ing, but she never come out. Remy feel sorry for her."

"Why?"

Remy gave her an odd look. "She so scared all de time. I tell you, 'Ro, dere's more dan jus' loneliness goin' on in dat house o' hers. I seen enough to know she probably been traumatized by somet'ing. Maybe as you get more comfortable wit' her maybe she open up a little an' tell you what wrong. It not natural for a chile to be so scare' like dat all de time."

"Remy, it is a new country. She has lived in France for the last seven years; the adjustment, from what she has known to what she has now, must be severe."

"Maybe," Remy said, unconvinced. "Wait. She say she get punished for what she do wrong. Do you t'ink maybe she get…physically punished?"

Ororo shuddered at the idea. "What could she possibly do so wrong to warrant that kind of treatment?" she asked. "She is so withdrawn, so anxious to please within reasonable bounds, and she never goes anywhere. What could she do that would make them punish her?"

"Don' know," Remy said, shrugging. "I could be wrong. Hope I am. Don' worry, 'Ro. I get your girl her pizza." He slid off the counter and headed out of the kitchen.

Ororo sighed, and started dinner preparations. She was deep in thought when another voice spoke behind her. "Ororo?"

She turned. "Yes, Charles?"

Xavier reached up onto the counter and stole a bit of pepperoni she was slicing for the salad. "Your new acquaintance sounds interesting," he said neutrally.

"Was Remy talking?" Ororo frowned.

"No, of course not. No, I heard your thoughts. You were thinking rather loudly," he said with a twinkle in his eye and a polite cough behind his hand.

Ororo had to smile at that, and she handed him another slice. "I am sorry. I hope I did not disturb you."

"Not at all," Xavier said. "Actually, that is why I came to see you. I do remember something of her father. I thought you might be interested."

"Hold that thought," Ororo said, and opened the oven quickly, checking the roast. "Go ahead." She closed the oven door, put her cooking mitt down on the counter, and gave Charles her undivided attention.

"Henry LeFevre attended the same college I did," Xavier said, steepling his fingers as he spoke. "He was a very quiet, intense, studious young man. I had my share of wild college nights.." and Ororo grinned, having trouble imagining Charles as a brash young man drinking the night away. Charles smiled back. "Oh yes. But Henry never did. He was the valedictorian of the class; he got his bachelor's degree in business. I didn't see much of him afterward; we went our separate ways. It was after I returned here that I found out he had purchased a manor home, and it was right next door. We renewed our acquaintance for a few years, and then he went to France on some errand or another for his company. I remember one Christmas, I invited him over, and he brought with him his girlfriend from France." Charles sighed. "Elise, her name was. She was beautiful, exotic, and he loved her so much. She didn't speak a word of English then." He smiled. "He moved to France with her; then, when his company transferred him here, she came back to the States with him and married him. I was at their wedding.

"He loved her, and she loved him. They looked like the perfect couple. She got pregnant soon, with their child; and he was so proud! He went out and hired decorators to do an entire suite of rooms for the child. When their daughter was born they were so happy.

"But his company transferred him to Germany. He came home for the holidays, but the time apart was too much for their marriage. She would beg him to stay when he came home, and cried when he left, and I think he hated having to leave, but he had an obligation, and he went. Finally she couldn't stand it any more. She filed for divorce and took the child with her to France when she moved back.

"Henry was devastated. He closed up the house he had purchased for them, and took off. I've lost touch with him over the years. I did read in the papers a couple months ago that his wife had died, and he now had custody of his daughter, and I knew he'd reopened the house he bought for his wife…but I hadn't heard from him, and I assumed he had taken the child with him. Though, from what you're telling me, I assume he has not."

"No," Ororo said quietly. "He left her in the care of a nanny and a couple of tutors, and she has not seen her since he brought her to live in the mansion next door. Joette is not happy; the nanny he has left her with has no idea how to handle a sensitive personality like hers. She seems to think Joey's shyness is due to a sullen temperament rather than a reclusive nature and the newness of her situation. And the fact that her father is absent and she cannot air her grievances exacerbates her discomfort with her current surroundings."

"What does she look like?" Xavier asked curiously. Ororo gave him a description of the girl, and Xavier started nodding when she described the child's eyes.

"Her mother had those same eyes," he said quietly. "Even I remember them. Maybe that is why he is avoiding her. She reminds him too much of her mother. If she looks like her mother, their marriage will haunt him, and especially the way she died. And he never did get the chance to say goodbye to her."

"What did happen? Joey said her mother died, but she did not say how."

"A drunk driver slammed into her mother's car one evening, and killed her instantly. I read about it in the papers. Joette had a concussion and a broken leg. The funeral was conducted quickly and discreetly by Elise's brother; and when Joette came out of the hospital the first thing they did was take her to her mother's tombstone. It was a devastating thing to do to a child twelve years old. Her uncle would have liked to take her, but Elise had left instructions in her will that should anything happen to her, Joey was to go to her father in America. That is why she is here."

Ororo was shaking her head. "Poor child. No wonder she seems traumatized. Charles, do you have a problem with her coming to help me in my garden? She has a magic touch when it comes to flowers. Her greenhouse is full of her efforts."

"Her mother was good with growing things, too, as I recall," Charles said as he took a handful of plates from the counter to begin setting the supper table. "She did have a mutant gene, though unless you count her way with plants, it didn't show. Henry is an empath. Very low level; he only uses it to sense truth or lies at the negotiating table. It's why he's so successful at his business." Charles hmmph'd. "Henry is a mutant, Elise was one too. I wonder if Joette will be one as well; and what abilities she will manifest."

"Only time will tell." Ororo opened the oven and lifted the roast out. "Charles, if you will begin setting the table, and call everyone for dinner…"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

                Ororo was waiting by the old willow the next afternoon when Joey came running up a little after two o'clock. "I stopped at the greenhouse to get my smock," Joey gasped, winded from running. 'I thought I might need it."

                "Oh, almost certainly," Ororo said, hugging the child. She led the way to the garden, opened the gate, and watched Joey slip through.

                The late-summer roses were blooming, and their scent made a heady mixture in the still summer air. There wasn't much of a breeze in the air that day; the air was hot and sticky. Ororo held the trailers close to the trellis as Joey tied the branches to the frame. Then she stood back and looked around the garden.

                "It's so beautiful here," she said. "So peaceful. You've got a lot of different roses here, but somehow the mix of species isn't chaotic. They kind of…complement each other." She turned to Ororo. 'Do you only grow roses?"

                "I have a variety of plants," Ororo said. "There is a bit of garden around the other side of the house where I have other plants, but roses are my favorite are roses, that's why there is an entire garden dedicated to them."

                "Can I see the other garden?"

                In answer, Ororo got up and led her out the gate and around the side of the mansion to the back lawn. Joey gasped in delight and ran along the path into the new garden.

                "It's beautiful!" She cried in delight. Ororo smiled.

                The surrounding hedge was a mixture of holly, juniper, and forsythia bushes, although with the spring flowers all gone there was only green left. Ororo had planted morning glory and moonflower vines, and these flowers provided a splash of color among all the green in the mornings. Around the foot of the hedge she had planted sweet alyssum, small fragrant white flowers, and interspersed them with yellow, blue, and red asters. Grass was planted in between the various flowerbeds, creating thick green paths between the beds of petunias, primroses, delphinium, hyacinth, lilies, and dahlias. As  Joey rounded one particularly large, grand bed of  delphinium, her eyes fell on the small artificial pond one of the gardeners had installed, at Ororo's bidding.

                She went to her knees beside the pond, examining the blue, red, pink, white, and yellow water lilies that Ororo had planted. As she examined a particularly pretty flower, she saw something flit below the surface, quickly, and drew back with a start. "There are fish in here?" she said, curiosity overcoming her startlement. As she raised her head and looked, a large, ugly frog croaked at her and jumped into the water. She blinked in surprise.

                "Fish, yes," Ororo said, settling onto the grass beside the girl. "Koi. One of the gardeners has a fondness for koi, and deposited a few in here. Lower your hand in the water, and wait. They will come up and nibble on your fingers." Joey did so, and after a moment, Ororo saw a broad white back cut the water just in front of the girl's hand and nibble the submerged fingers. "The frog, I suspect, is an escapee from Bobby's prank a few weeks ago."

                Joey looked at her quizzically, and Ororo smiled. "Bobby is our resident prankster. He acquired a small frog from somewhere and left it in Rogue's bed, and she had a fright when she lay down. We heard her scream, and when we came in there was a frog sitting on her pillow. We teased her for some time about being the princess who kissed a frog." Joey laughed.

                "How many people live here?" she asked, removing her hand from the water, shaking the stray drops off her fingers and settling back on the grass beside Ororo at the margin of the pool.

                "The number varies," Ororo said slowly. "We have friends come over and leave all the time. About eleven are currently in residence, though."

                Joey's eyes were wide. "Wow. What's it like, having that many friends?"

                Ororo laughed. "A lot of fun. There is always something going on, something to do, someone to hang around with and have fun. You never need be alone unless you wish to. However, there is a down side. No one can get along all the time with everyone else. And when someone gets angry with someone else, the atmosphere can get…strained."

                "I'll bet!" Joey said. "Still, it must be nice living all together with a lot of different people like that. Do you own this house?"

                "No," Ororo smiled at the thought. "No, the house is owned by my friend Charles." She looked at the girl intently, though she tried to appear casual. "Charles knew your father long ago."

                Joey's eyes were wide. "Really? How?"

                "They went to college together. I believe Charles also said he remembers your mother."

                Joey looked down, and Ororo could see she was fighting tears. "I miss my mother. Did he say she was as pretty as everyone said she was?" Her voice was soft.

                "I described you to Charles last night. He told me that you have your mother's eyes. I do not know what your mother looks like, though; perhaps he would be better able to tell you." Ororo stood up, brushing loose soil from her knees. "Come. I am thirsty. I want to go and get a drink. And I believe you could use one too."

                Joey followed Ororo back down the path through the gate and back toward the back door that opened into the kitchen. As soon as they stepped through, her eyes grew round.

                Remy, as per his agreement with Ororo, sat back in one of the kitchen chair working on a slice of pizza. In front of him were two boxes from the local pizza place, and both were giving off a pleasant aroma. Ororo sniffed. Extra large, from the looks of the boxes; one cheese and one with the works. She watched Joey's eyes grow wide, and she stopped involuntarily.

                "Come in, child," Ororo said quickly, not giving Joey time to think. "This is my friend Remy."

                "Allo, chere," Remy said laconically, smiling the smile that had charmed so many women. "Je vais Remy."

                "Je vais Joette. Joey." Joey replied automatically, unable to take her eyes off the monster pizza n front of Remy.

                "Want one?" Remy pushed the box toward her. "Plenty to go roun'."

                "Oh, no, I couldn't, really, I couldn't," Joey clasped her hands behind her back. "I'm not supposed to eat anything today."

                Ororo blinked as she turned away from the sink. "Why is that?" she asked, keeping her voice and face carefully neutral as she took a towel from the kitchen drawer and dried her hands.

                Joey gulped and studied the toe of her shoe. "I was bad last night. Mrs. Seward took all my meals away for today."

                "What?" Remy's feet, propped carelessly on the seat of another chair, hit the floor as he leaned forward. "What did you do, chere?"

                "The cook was off last night, so she made dinner herself. She cooked the roast wrong; it was still red inside and black outside. She tried to make me eat it anyway, and I refused. She said--" Joey's voice dropped an octave. "She said that if I was so ungrateful as to refuse a meal she had made herself, then I was obviously not hungry. Therefore, I would get no meals today."

                Ororo gritted her teeth. Joey was a very slender child. Ororo considered her thin for her age. She definitely couldn't afford to miss meals, especially at the age she was now, where her body was still growing. "Are you hungry?"

                "Yes," Joey whispered.

                "Then sit and eat after you have washed your hands. It is only a little after four; you need not leave until four-thirty, if you wish to be back at your house by five. We have plenty. Please, Joey."

                Joey hesitated only a short instant longer, then sighed and went to the sink. She washed the dirt from her fingers, then sat down at the table and took the plate Ororo handed her with a slice on it. She closed her eyes and bit into it, smiling. "It's been so long since I had pizza," she said wistfully. "Thank you."

                "You are quite welcome." Ororo took a piece herself and bit into it, as Remy and Joey began to talk. Lost in her musings, it was almost a shock to hear Charles's mental voice intrude on her mind. **Ororo?**

                _Yes, Charles?_

                **Where are you, right now?**

                _In the kitchen. Remy picked up a pizza and brought it back, and Joey was in here washing her hands after we got done in the gardens. She was hungry; she had been forbidden meals today, and I insisted that she eat._

                Charles's mindvoice sounded as shocked as Ororo had felt. **What had she done wrong that they would forbid her meals and snacks for the day?**

                _She is forbidden to have snacks. Her nanny says she will get fat. The cook had a day off yesterday, and the nanny was compelled to cook the child dinner. It was inedible. Joey refused to eat it; and as a punishment for being ungrateful Joey was placed on a day-long fast._

                Charles sounded disgusted. **That is no reason for her to be starved for a day. Do you think the child would speak to me?**

                _I don't see why not. I took the liberty of telling her that you knew her parents. She wondered if she looks anything like her mother._

                **I wondered about that too. I shall be in the kitchen shortly.**

And sure enough, Charles was there in a few moments in his regular wheelchair. "Oh, hello, Ororo, Remy. I did not realize we had company."

                Joey leaped out of her chair as Xavier spoke, and stood twisting her hands nervously, much the same way she had when Ororo had first met her. "Joey," she said tranquilly, "This is Charles. He owns the house."

                Her head came up. "You knew my mother?" she asked, studying him.

                "Yes," Xavier said, looking at her intently. "You look so much like her. She had your same eyes. The only thing I can see of your father is your nose." He wheeled the chair closer to the table and tweaked her nose with one finger before reaching toward the pizza box.

                "Lotsa cheese, Charles," Remy grinned. "Got one wit' de works, too."

                Xavier pushed the first box aside and opened the second one. He took out a large slice of that, then, without noticing the plate Ororo was trying to hand him, took a bite out of it. A piece of sausage rolled off the top of the pizza and fell into his lap.

                "Charles!" Ororo scolded gently as she deftly slid a napkin onto his lap and a plate into his hand. "You'll get messy."

                "There is more to life than being clean," Charles said, his eyes twinkling, but took the plate anyway. "Joey, please. Sit and eat." He gestured to the seat. Joey sat down again, and after a pause of a few minutes she continued eating.

                He drew her gently into the conversation, and after a short while he saw the extreme shyness easing and she began to talk more freely. She was in the middle of describing what life had been like in France when Ororo glanced at the clock. "Oh, no!" She hastily gathered Joey's plate, swiped her mouth and chin with a napkin, and took off the girl's smock. "You will have to run," she told Joey. "I am sorry. I hope you do not get into trouble."

                "It's okay. Nice meeting you. Bye!" she called as she took off out the back door.

                Xavier stared mystified as he watched her disappear. "What was that all about, Ororo?" he asked.

                She must be inside by five, or she will get into trouble with her nanny. Mrs. Seward forbade her to have any further contact with me the first day we met, but Joey is so lonely and starved for a friend she ignored the decree. I told her I would make sure she is back on time."

                Joey arrived back at the greenhouse just as Mrs. Seward's voice floated out across the lawn toward her. As she started toward the house, trying to calm her breathing, she heard the sound of car engines in the driveway. Ignoring Mrs. Seward's annoyed calls and raced around the house, following the sound, hoping it was her father.

                She stopped short in the middle of the front driveway, disappointed. It was a yellow taxicab, and the butler Michael was helping a strange man unload bags from the back and trunk.

                The stranger saw her standing there, and smiled as he came closer to her. "Well, hello," he said genially. "You must be Joette. My friend said you lived here." He held out a hand. "I'm Gregory Hunt. I'm a friend of your father's. He told me I could stay here while my home is being built."

                "Joette Gourand," Joette said guardedly as she took his hand. There was something about this man she didn't like, but she couldn't say why.

                "Joette!" Mrs. Seward came sweeping around the side of the building in search of her. "Come back here, you impossible child, how dare you go running off like that--" and she grabbed Joey's arm so tightly it hurt.

                "Now, now, Mrs. Seward," the man said, standing easily and speaking gently to the annoyed nanny. "She was simply curious to see who had arrived. And was probably expecting to see your father, too, weren't you?" Joey nodded mutely.

                "See? That's all. And now…well, now that she's here, she can help get my things up to my room. Mrs. Harper, the housekeeper, did inform everyone of my impending arrival, did she not?' he asked Mrs. Seward. "Henri did tell me he had called here and told you all to expect my arrival."

                "I was told no such thing," Mrs. Seward said, drawing herself up to her full height. "I shall speak to Mrs. Harper myself. Joey, after you help the gentleman with his things, go straight to your room and begin your homework. Remember, you are to have no dinner today."

                "I remember, Mrs. Seward," Joey said, a little comforted by the three slices of pizza Ororo had persuaded to eat.

                "Such an obedient child," Gregory said. "Here. Can you carry this for me?" He handed her a small overnight bag, which she took. Gregory took two more bags, and with Michael taking two more, they started up the steps that led into the house.

                She put the bag on the bed where he indicated it should go, and he smiled and patted her hand. 'Thank you so much, my dear," he said. "You've saved me another trip downstairs.' He opened the bag, fished around in it for a second, and came up with a small square of chocolate. "Here. Consider it a tip for helping me."

                She took it eagerly, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. The sweetness spread over her tongue, slowly, and she smiled in delight. The man watched her. "Don't worry; I won't tell your nanny we broke the 'no snacks' rule."

                Joey stopped chewing. She had forgotten she wasn't supposed to eat anything today. She looked like she was about to spit it out, but the man placed a hand on her shoulder. "Please. You'll hurt my feelings if you don't" He rubbed her shoulder and the back of her neck slowly.

                Joey's mouth went dry. She swallowed the last of the chocolate with difficulty, and uneasily twitched her shoulder out from under his hand. "Thank you," she said., 'I really must be getting to my homework now." And she turned and fled.

                She sat in the library, trying to do her homework and not succeeding. Why didn't she like him? He seemed nice enough, and he had given her candy, which she hadn't tasted in months and really appreciated…but the way he had rubbed her shoulder…

                She finished her homework and read the book she had been assigned, and when she finished that, and looked up at the clock, she saw that it was eight o'clock. She got up and went to her room to pick up her nightgown before she took her bath.

                She stripped off her shoes, socks, and clothes, and was standing over the bathtub in only her underwear waiting for the tub to fill with water when the door opened. She almost screamed in shock when she turned around and saw not her nanny, as she expected, but the stranger. "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I did not know this bathroom was occupied." He closed the door, and Joey turned back to her bath, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he was standing on the other side of the door watching her. She pulled the towel off the towel rail and wrapped it around her just barely budding breasts, then walked to the door, shut it firmly, and turned the lock on the door. The feeling of being watched disappeared, and she got into the bath with considerable relief.


	4. Chapter 4

 Chapter 4

                Mrs. Seward was waiting for her in her bedroom when Joey got out of the bathtub. She was mumbling something about 'not being told' something when she turned around, and then she shrieked. "Dirty girl!"

                Joey looked startled, and the woman flew across the room to where Joey was holding her clothes and shoes. "Look at your shoes, you dirty little girl! Didn't you wipe them when you came in?" Joey looked at the soles that Mrs. Seward was holding upward, and saw dirt and sand and debris from Ororo's garden stuck under the heels and buckles of her shoes. Fortunately, Mrs. Seward was far more worried about the dirty shoes than she was about where the dirt had come from.

                "Did you walk all over the house in these shoes?" Mrs. Seward demanded. Joey lowered her eyes to the carpet and nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Seward. I'm sorry."

                "Take these disgustingly dirty shoes back into your bathroom, wash them thoroughly, and scrub out all the mud with the shoe brush in the sink," Mrs. Seward said, disgusted. "Put them in the bathroom to dry, then I want you to fill the bathroom bucket with water, get the cleanser from the cabinet under the sink, and I want you to start at the front door. You will scrub the floor of every room you have walked into, clean every speck of dirt from all of the rooms, and then you will finish by scouring your bathroom from floor to ceiling. Do you understand?"

                "A-all the rooms?" Joey stammered. "Mrs. Seward, I took the bag up to the gentleman's room. Do I need to clean there too?"

                "All the rooms!" Mrs. Seward shouted at her, and Joey stumbled back a step. "And you will do a thorough job of it. When you are done come to my room. You shall not go to bed tonight."

                Joey trudged back into her bathroom down the hall, tears filling her eyes. No food that day, and now she was not to be able to sleep either. This was so unfair!

                She scrubbed and scrubbed the soles of her shoes until every speck of mud and dirt was off them, then cleaned the tops so that they looked almost like new. Setting them down in the bathtub to dry, she took the bucket out from under the sink and filled it with warm water, took the spray bottle of cleanser and a scrub sponge, then made her way slowly down the stairs to the front foyer. Dropping wearily to her knees, she started scrubbing every square foot of the hardwood floor.

                The grandfather clock in the hall was chiming eight thirty when she finally finished the entire room. She paused wearily at the foot of the steps that led from the foyer to the upper floors, rubbing her aching shoulders, then reluctantly took the scrub sponge and started working on the first step.

                It was well past nine thirty when she finished the last of the twenty-five marble steps.  She sighed and wilted to her knees, fighting tears as she looked down the long hall. Surely Mrs. Seward didn't mean the whole hall, did she? She'd only walked down a little part of it. The guest room was only five doors down from hers. She started scrubbing.

                At ten o'clock Mrs. Seward came out of her room, next to Joey's, and watched the girl scrub the floor in front of her room. "Did you do the entire hall?" she demanded.

                "N-no," Joey said, sitting back on her heels. The knees of her white nightgown were dirty from scrubbing the floors. "I only walked down a little of it, so I figured I'd clean where I'd walked--"

                Mrs. Seward grabbed Joey's arm, grabbed the bucket with her other hand, and half-dragged the girl down the hall. She let Joey fall to her knees at the top of the hall, where the stairs started, and said, "I said every room you walked in, and I meant it. I want every inch of this hall floor scrubbed, do you understand that?"

                Joey flinched at the sound and tone of the woman's voice, but she didn't dare argue. She dipped her sponge in the pail and grimly started scrubbing over the floor.

                It was almost midnight when she finished the entire hallway. She leaned against the wall at the end of the hall, her arms trembling from the strain, and let the tears fall silently down her cheeks. She was tired, so tired, and she wanted to curl up right there and fall asleep…but she would get in even more trouble if she did that, and so she forced her heavy feet to the door of the guest room and knocked softly when she saw light under the door. "Come in."

                Mr. Hunt looked surprised when she opened the door. "Shouldn't you be in bed by now?' he asked her.

                Joey blinked back tears. "I came in with dirty shoes," she whispered. "Mrs. Seward got mad at me and she told me to scrub the floor of every room I'd walked into. I'm not to go to bed tonight."

                "Poor child," the man said, smiling. "You know, I didn't see any mud in my room. Skip my room."

                The offer was tempting, but Joey shook her head. 'I'll get in trouble if Mrs. Seward finds out," she sighed. "I'll try to hurry so I don't bother you too long." She dropped to her knees and started scrubbing.

                She could feel Mr. Hunt's eyes on her as she scrubbed. She felt really uncomfortable under his scrutiny; and once or twice, when she caught his eye, she noticed his gaze was directed somewhere toward her body. It was very uncomfortable. She hurried, scrubbing faster.

                She finally finished in a corner of the room and dropped her scrub brush in the bucket, sighing heavily as she stood. A hand took the bucket from her and set it back down, and Mr. Hunt took her over to a chair, sitting down and lifting her onto his knee. Joey gasped in shock and tried to squirm away, but his hands were wrapped firmly around her hip, pinning her to his leg. "Let me go!" she cried. "Let me go, I don't want to sit in your lap, stop it…" She wriggled again.

                Mr. Hunt's breathing sounded odd, like he'd just run a mile, but he held her firmly on his lap, and Joey panicked. She lunged out of the chair, throwing all of her weight forward to try and break his grip, but all she succeeded in doing was dragging them both out of the chair. She landed on the floor hard on her chest, gasping as the breath rushed out of her lungs from the weight of Mr. Hunt's body atop hers.

                "Get off me!" she cried. "Please, get off me!!" He pushed himself up on his elbows, and she wormed out from under him, grabbed her bucket, and fled the room.

                Hunt got up, slowly. Maybe he'd pushed it too far too soon. He should have tried to gain her confidence first. Well, if he was lucky, her nanny would dismiss her story as a fanciful child's lies, and then no one would believe her. The nanny didn't seem like the sympathetic type, anyway.

                He groaned as he remembered the tiny body wrapped inside the voluminous folds of the white nightgown. When she was on her hands and knees scrubbing her panty-clad backside had showed plainly through the thin white fabric, and it had been all he could do not to drop to his knees behind her and take her right there. He returned to his bed, lying down and pulling the sheet up, and reached under the covers to feel the hardness there. Thinking about the girl soon brought him fulfillment, and he settled back and went to sleep.

                Joey fled down the hall to the library, tears falling down her cheeks. What had happened? It seemed innocent; her mother had had her sit on her lap many times, and Joey had never felt anything but safe and protected there. But this man…this stranger…something didn't feel right, his intentions hadn't been innocent, of that much she was sure.

                Her mind awhirl with confused thoughts and misgivings, she finished the library, then dragged her tired, aching body down the hall to her bathroom. Fishing out her now-dry shoes from the bathtub, she put them on the floor as she emptied the bucket of dirty water down the drain, then started cleaning the bathroom. Fortunately it was a small bathroom, and she didn't have a lot of things in it. She wiped down the counters, scrubbed the toilet, sink and tub, then finished off with the floor. When she was satisfied that the bathroom was as clean as she could make it, she picked up her shoes, took them to her room and put them in the closet, then lay back on her bed for just a moment, tears filling her eyes. She wanted so much to curl up and go to sleep; her arms and shoulders were aching from all the scrubbing. Instead, after a moment, she pushed up off the bed, smoothed the covers so it didn't look like she had lain down in it, and trudged off to Mrs. Seward's room.

                The room was dark, and she tiptoed in hesitantly. "Mrs. Seward?" she whispered. "Mrs. Seward, I'm done scrubbing the floors."

                "Well it's about time," came a sleepy grumble from the wide bed in the middle of the room. "Go stand in the corner, face to the wall. I don't want you to go to sleep, so raise your arms." Joey sighed. Having to stand in the corner with her arms raised, hands directly over her head, was a familiar punishment; the ache took a while to settle into her shoulders, but eventually when it did keeping her arms up would become torture. Well it wouldn't take long this time; her shoulders already ached from the strain of scrubbing. "Um, Mrs. Seward?"

                "What?" came the cross voice from the bed.

                "I was in the guest bedroom scrubbing the floor, and…well, when I was done he tried to get me to sit on his lap, and he was touching my hips…"

                Mrs. Seward sprang out of bed, rushing over to Joey and slapping her cheek. Not hard; but it was enough to get her point across. "Bad girl! Lying about your father's guest! How dare you make up such lies! Get the yardstick, now!" She switched on the light.

                Joey's face went white. "Mrs. Seward, please, I swear I'm not lying! I wouldn't lie about something like that! Please, Mrs. Seward, I swear…" but the woman pointed toward her closet, and Joey went to it, her steps halting. She opened the closet door and took, from inside it, the long wooden yardstick and handed it to Mrs. Seward. Then, tears still filling her eyes, she turned around and pulled her nightgown up to her waist.

                The first blow took her by surprise, as it always did. But it smarted particularly badly this time, since it had been so long since the last time she had felt the heavy wooden implement impact against the backs of her calves. And the hurt only got worse, as Mrs. Seward didn't stop with the five smacks she usually gave Joey, but delivered five more to the backs of Joey's thighs. Joey sobbed as she clenched her fists in her nightgown, willing herself not to cry out.

                She dropped the hem of the nightgown at Mrs. Seward's command, and replaced the yardstick in the closet. Mrs. Seward returned to her bed without a word, and Joey went to stand in the corner, her arms raised.

                It was a hellish night. It wasn't the first time she'd been ordered to stay up all night, but sometimes she could lean her forehead against the wall and prop herself upright as she dozed lightly. Not so tonight. Her legs throbbed with a fiery sting; and her shoulders ached. She bit her lip to keep her sobs from escaping and disturbing the sleeping woman in the bed, and just stood there, weeping silently, until the room lightened and Mrs. Seward woke.

                "Get out." And Joey dropped her arms and fled.

                The welts on her thighs and calves were distracting as she tried to concentrate on her schoolwork. She shifted in her seat constantly, earning numerous reprimands from her tutors about her inability to pay attention, and when she was finally dismissed at noon to eat, she fled to the dining room with relief. She hadn't been able to eat much breakfast; maybe lunch would be easier.

                But when she reached the dining room, more humiliation awaited her. Mrs. Seward was there, and beside her was Mr. Hunt. "I have told Mr. Hunt about your lies, Joette," Mrs. Seward said coldly. "And he is rightly outraged. I have told him that you have been punished for your lies, but he wishes you to render him an apology. Apologize, now."

                Joey opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She couldn't.

                "Apologize, or you shall not eat any lunch today." Mrs. Seward threatened.

                Joey dropped her eyes and shoulders, defeated. She hurt all over, she was so tired she could almost fall asleep standing up, and she was starving. "I'm sorry for making up lies," she mumbled.

                "I did not hear you. Speak louder," Mrs. Seward rapped out crisply.

                "I'm sorry for making up lies about you, Mr. Hunt," Joey repeated louder. Her eyes burned with tears she was too tired to shed.

                The man nodded, and Mrs. Seward said, "Sit down and eat, Joette. And don't fidget."

                Joey controlled her wriggling as best she could. She couldn't control it entirely; the dining room chairs were solid wood, and the welts on the backs of her thighs were very painful indeed. She finally took a seat on the very edge of the chair and finished her lunch that way; then went back up to the library for her last two hours of schoolwork before being told to leave. She fled to the relative shelter of the greenhouse; she didn't want to see miss Ororo that day. She had to wear a dress, since jeans would have chafed the welts on her legs unbearably; but the dark bruises on her calves were visible, and she didn't want to have to admit that she'd been punished. So she locked herself in the greenhouse and curled up on the floor, and started to cry.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

                Ororo waited by the old willow until almost two thirty. When Joey didn't come, she frowned, and then set off around the lake to find out what was happening with her little friend.

                As she approached the greenhouse she heard the sound of sobbing. Startled and alarmed, she tapped on the door lightly. "Joey? Are you there?"

                "Go away, please go away," Joey sobbed from inside the structure. "I don't want to see anyone right now, please…just…go away." Worried, Ororo took the key to the greenhouse from her pocket and slipped it into the lock. "Joey, I'm coming in."

                Joey sat up quickly, wiping her eyes and tucking her bruised legs under her as she turned to face Ororo. "I'm not up to company, please, not today…"

                Ororo stared down at the girl sitting on the floor. The greenhouse floor was always swept clean; probably to avoid getting her clothes dirty; but there were streaks of tears on Joey's cheeks, and dark shadows under her eyes. "You look awful, child," she said softly, crouching beside the child. "What is wrong?"

                Joey dropped her eyes, fidgeted with the fingers laced tightly in her lap. "Nothing. I'm just not in the mood for company today."

                "It is not nothing," Ororo said, tilting her head to try and see under Joey's long bangs. "You would not be crying if something weren't wrong." When that didn't produce results, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the slim shoulders.

                And Joey dissolved into tears, sobbing as hard as Ororo had seen anyone cry. She brought her arms up to wrap around Ororo's neck and clung to the older woman, and Ororo held her and let her cry.

                Finally, when the child stopped crying, Ororo wiped the small face with her gentle fingers and said, "I am getting cramped crouching here. Come, stand up." She started to pull Joey to her feet, but Joey resisted, and Ororo suddenly realized she was trying to hide something behind her back from the older woman. She swept the girl up off the floor in one smooth move, and turned her around. For a second she was puzzled; there was nothing there…but then her eyes roved lower, and she gasped audibly.

                Joey twisted out of her grasp, hunching her shoulders and backing slowly away from Ororo. "Don't look, please don't look," the girl said, tears threatening to overflow her indigo eyes again. "It wasn't my fault, it really wasn't; she said I told lies and she hit me, but it wasn't a lie, I swear it wasn't; he did grab me and touch me, and  I wasn't comfortable with it, I tried to tell him but he wouldn't let me go--"

                Ororo stepped forward and swept the girl up in her arms. The ridges of the purple-black bruises felt hard against her skin, and Ororo bit her lip as she carried the girl out of the greenhouse and down the slope to the lake. Once out of sight of the house, she took to the air, taking the most direct route to the mansion. Once at the back door, she put Joey down long enough to open the door, then firmly escorted her inside.

                Remy was at the table, this time with a paper bag from the local sub place sitting on the table in front of him, his feet propped up on the chair beside him. He sat up quickly as Ororo shut the door, then rose as he saw her grim face. "What wrong, chere?"

                Ororo turned the girl around, and Remy's eyes widened as he saw the ugly long black bruises discoloring the back of those pale legs. With a muttered curse he got up out of his chair and ran out of the kitchen, heading no doubt for the lower levels to get Hank.

                Ororo tried to get Joey to sit, but the hard wooden kitchen chairs caused the child to cry out. Ororo helped her stand, then knelt behind her and started to pull up the hem of the little sundress, to see the extent of the damage. Joey protested, sobbing, but Ororo spoke to her gently but firmly. "Joette. I will not hurt you, I wish to see how badly you are hurt and see if there is anything I can do to alleviate your pain." The girl put up another protest, then gave up and stood quietly as Ororo slid the dress up.

                The livid bruises went all the way up the back of the child's legs. Ororo counted them with wide, disbelieving eyes. Ten. Ten four inch long, two inch wide welts marked the girl's legs from just above her heels to mid-thigh. She winced at the thought of how much pain the child had endured while receiving the beating. "Joette, what happened?"

                "I was bad." Ororo heard the bitterness in the little girl's voice, and flinched.

                When no other information was forthcoming, Ororo sighed. "Nothing you could have done would possibly have justified these bruises. Joette--" and her words trailed off as the kitchen door opened, and Remy came back in with Hank, Jean, and Charles in tow.

                Jean and Charles both gasped. Hank pressed his lips into a thin, grim line, and sat down in the chair Remy had vacated. "I shall not hurt you any more than I have to," he said to her gently. "I have an ointment that will dull the pain from the welts for a time, but I will need to apply the ointment directly to the welts in order for it to take effect. The pain will pass quickly. Can you bear it?"

                Joette nodded, screwing her eyes shut and reaching out to grasp the edge of the table. Ororo intercepted her hands with her own, and felt the girl grip her hand as Hank touched the welt at the top of her thigh. Joey gasped in pain, but otherwise made no further sign of discomfort.

                "Hello, Joey." Jean spoke gently, walking around the table to see the girl's face. 'I am Jean. Ororo has told me a lot about you the last couple of days." Joey nodded, but said nothing. "Can you tell us what happened?"

                Joey looked down at the floor. "I was bad. Mrs. Seward, my nanny, hit my legs with a yardstick. You don't really need to worry about the bruises, they'll go away in a couple of weeks. They did the last time."

                "This is not the first time this has happened?" Jean said, keeping her voice low and soothing as she shot a glance at Charles.

                "N-no," Joey admitted reluctantly. "The first time she did this was when I went into Papa's study to find a phone number I could call him with and I disturbed some papers. She asked me if I had done it, and I told her no, but I had paint on my fingers and she saw the paint spot on the desk. She disciplined me with the yardstick."

                "What did you do this time to deserve this?"

                Joey burst into tears. "Please, I don't want to talk about it, I'm hungry and I'm so tired, she didn't let me sleep last night, I'm sleepy, oh, Papa, where are you?" she moaned.

                Jean crouched beside Joey, taking her hands from Ororo's and turning the girl to face her. "What do you mean by 'she didn't let you sleep', Joey?"

                "Mrs. Seward," Joey gulped miserably. She hadn't meant to let that slip, but she was so tired…"I walked all over the house yesterday in muddy shoes, I forgot to wipe them when I came in, and she made me stay up half the night scrubbing the floors clean, and then I had to stand in the corner all night."

                **She's exhausted,** Xavier said grimly. "Ororo, if you would, take her upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms and let her lie down for a while."

                "No!" Joey twisted in Ororo's arms, panicked. "No, I can't, I'll get in trouble if I'm late getting back, and Mrs. Seward said I wasn't allowed to have naps today."

                "You are not going home tonight," Xavier said. "I will not allow you to be abused  like this…"

                "No, no, it was my fault, I lied, I deserved it, please let me go!" Joey was terrified. What would Mrs. Seward say if she didn't come home? And how bad would the beating be when she finally did go home? She didn't want to think about it.

                Xavier studied the child for a moment. She wasn't going to stay willingly, that much was certain. And he was not going to hold her here against her will. "Very well," he said quietly. "I would still like to see you get some sleep, though. You are exhausted. Ororo will show you upstairs for an hour's nap, and then you may go home. We will wake you when you need to leave."

                "Promise?" Joey said warily.

                Xavier nodded as Hank stepped back. "Lie on your stomach, so that the ointment does not rub off," he said. 'It needs about half an hour to soak into the skin, but by the time you are ready to leave, there should be no sign that any medicine was applied." Joey nodded as Ororo took her upstairs.

                Her fatigue and the prospect of finally getting some sleep dulled her eagerness to see the rest of the house, but the faint impression she did get was that the house was huge. They went up a flight of stairs, then another flight, and then she opened a door and showed her up a short set of steps to an attic. Joey gasped in delight. There were plants everywhere, greenery tucked in corners all around the room, and flowering plants on the windowsill and hanging from the skylight. The bed was neatly made with a pale-blue comforter that had a lacy white pattern on it. Ororo pulled the covers down, but Joey hung back. "This is someone's bed."

                "Mine," Ororo said tranquilly. "I have some things I need to do with my plants up here, and I will not make a lot of noise. But this way I can be nearby when I have to wake you." Joey said nothing else, but climbed into bed and stretched out on her stomach. Moments later, she was asleep.

                Ororo created a miniature rain cloud over her plants and let a light mist fall on them as she sat down in a chair beside the bed and picked up a book. She couldn't concentrate on the words on the page, however, and after staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes she put the book down, letting her eyes fall instead on the little girl sleeping peacefully on her bed.

                The welts, illuminated by the sunlight coming through the skylight, looked uglier than they had downstairs. Ororo gently pulled the skirt of the dress away from the girl's welted upper legs, allowing air to circulate and the ointment to soak into the skin. She reached out to touch one of the bruises, to see if the medication was being absorbed, and the girl stirred gently and moaned. Ororo quickly took her hand back, afraid she had woken the child up, but Joey just buried her face deeper in the pillow and continued to doze.

                **Ororo?**

                _Yes, Charles?_ Ororo responded, stepping back from the bed.

                **Is she sleeping?**

                Ororo descended the attic steps and met Charles in the third floor hallway. "She is asleep. Fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow."

                "She was exhausted," Xavier said, and Ororo heard sympathy for the child in his voice. "I wonder what she did to deserve this kind of treatment."

                "She said…when I found her in her greenhouse this afternoon…that she had gotten her beating for lying. Something about someone having grabbed her, and touched her, and she wasn't comfortable with it. She told her nanny, I assume, but the woman didn't believe her, and she was beaten."

                "I had seen a car traveling up toward her house. There was a man sitting in it. Would you ask her, when you get the chance, who it is?"

                "You think…" Ororo didn't finish. Her mind jumped to the same conclusion. "How could anyone believe that a child would make up such a story?" she asked, bewildered.

                "I don't know," Xavier said. "But we have no proof as yet. It may not be what we think. Unless she tells us, of course." He broke off as they heard footsteps on the attic stairs, and moments later Joey pulled open the attic door. "Did we wake you?"

                Joey shook her head as she rubbed her eyes. "No, I just…I knew I couldn't stay long, so I just dozed, I didn't really sleep deeply."

                Xavier checked his watch. "It's only a quarter after four. As you are now awake, perhaps you might also feel better if you came down and had something to eat." Joey nodded, and followed Ororo down to the kitchen.

                She was finishing a huge roast beef sandwich when Xavier came into the kitchen. "Joey," he began without preamble, "I don't know what happened at your house. I do know you're not willing to share it with us, but please remember this; we're your friends. I have been your father's friend for a long time, and Ororo has developed quite a liking for her little garden helper. If you ever need help, of any kind, please don't hesitate to come here. I will never ask you to do anything you're not comfortable with, and I won't force you to tell us anything. If you don't feel like telling us what happened now, that's all right. I just want you to know that we're here, and we care about you, and we want to help you. Feel free to come to us, at any time, day or night. Do you understand?"

                Joey looked at him with big eyes. "You won't mind?"

                "Of course not," Ororo said, hugging the child impulsively. Joey hugged her back, then glanced at the clock. "Oh, my, I have to go. Thanks for the nap, Mr. Xavier. And the sandwich, Ororo. I'll see you tomorrow." And she was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

                "There."

                Ororo looked over at the slightly wistful sound in Joey's voice. "You are done?"

                Joey tied off the last piece of twine, and sighed. 'Yeah. I'm done." She stared at the plant for a minute. "I won't be able to use the greenhouse as an excuse for much longer. It's getting colder, and as soon as the last leaves fall I won't be allowed to come out here anymore." She looked up at Ororo. "I won't be able to come see you."

                Ororo smiled gently and finished staking out the orchid before she responded. "You could always tell your Nanny you want to come visit us," she said. "I don't see why she couldn't bring you over."

                Joey made a face, picked up her orchid pot, and carried it over to the shelf where her other orchids sat. "She'll kill me if I told her," the little girl prophesied.

                Ororo sighed. After four months of knowing Joey, and seeing her almost every day, she had come to hate the child's nanny. There were so many things she had told Joey she couldn't do, and many things she had told the child to do and few of them made any sense. Why couldn't Joey get to know the next door neighbors?

                Joey opened the greenhouse door, and stuck her head out, listening. After a moment, she closed the door again. Ororo looked at her curiously. 'Are you waiting for something, Joey?"

                Joey blushed. "The mailman," she said. "Every year on my birthday Papa sends me a birthday card and money two days before my birthday. Every year. He never missed a year, and he was never late. He wrote me one year and told me why he always sent it early; so I could go buy what I wanted before the big day as he called it, and I could enjoy it on my birthday."

                "I didn't know your birthday was coming up," Ororo said. "You will be thirteen, am I correct?"

                "Yes," Joey nodded. "I'll finally be a teenager." She grinned. "Papa said last year he'd send me extra money this year because teenage girls needed 'stuff', as he called it. He always sent three hundred dollars to me every year, but when I turned ten he started sending me four hundred. And last year he said for my thirteenth birthday he'd send me five. I'm hoping I can talk Mrs. Seward into taking me shopping, because a lot of my clothes are getting really tight." Ororo nodded. She'd noticed Joey's clothes getting tighter, particularly across her chest and hips. "I ripped out one of my t-shirts yesterday. Mrs. Seward told me to sew it back together, but I told her it was too tight, and I needed new clothes, but she just said she didn't have money to budget for clothes. I was hoping if I have my own money she might take me."

                Ororo frowned. "When your father left, he should have given her instructions on how much to spend on clothes and food for you, as well as any other necessities you might need," she said. "What happens when you need feminine products?"

                Joey frowned. "What do you mean…oh! That stuff." Ororo nodded. "I'm lucky, I guess," Joey said. "I haven't started all that yet. Maman told me it would happen over the next year or so, but I haven't seen anything happening yet." She looked down at her body. "I'm starting to get wider hips, and my chest is definitely getting bigger, but I think I'm prepared for that. Right before Maman died we went and bought training bras and stuff. She said I'd need it eventually." She sniffed. "Mrs. Seward told me I'm starting to get fat. I told her it's not fat, I'm just growing into a woman. And that soon I'd have to find some friends, so I could have a boyfriend like some of the girls at my school in France did. She almost smacked me. Told me I was still a little girl and not to talk about nasty things like that." She hesitated. "Miss Ororo…"

                Ororo heard the change in the girl's voice and turned away from the small bonsai tree she was pruning. "What is it, child? Go ahead, you can ask me anything. I won't get mad."

                "Ummm…" The girl was plainly hesitant. "Maman told me she'd wait until I was a little older to talk to me about things, but…well…if I have questions, would you answer them for me? The anatomical texts in the library don't tell me much. And the last time Mrs. Seward caught me looking at them she threw them away."

                Ororo was glad her chocolate skin hid her blush. She'd never thought she'd find herself in the position of having to have 'the talk' with anyone. But this poor child had no one. It didn't seem likely that her nanny was going to answer any questions of the sort. "Go ahead and ask," she said gently. "You're old enough to know, since you're asking." She put the bonsai aside and sat down on one of the milk crates that Joey used for chairs. "Here. While we're talking, have something to eat." She opened the picnic basket she'd brought with her and extracted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Joey, and one for herself, then handed a bottle of juice to the girl and reached for her own water.

                Joey took a bite of her sandwich and chewed while she thought. Then she took a sip of her juice and plunged in. "Maman said that boys would want to touch me when I got older, that when I started dating they'd want me to kiss them.  Am I old enough now to do that?"

                Ororo swallowed hard. "No, Joey, I think you should wait until you get older for that," she said. "I didn't have my first kiss until I was almost eighteen."

                "Was it fun?"

                Ororo closed her eyes for a second, silently praying to the Goddess to help her. "Yes."

                "Well…" Joey hesitated, then said, "I know this girl…back in France, I mean…she lived with her mom in a boarding house, and another guy who lived there was touching her and stuff. He'd like, get her to sit on his lap and read her stories, and he'd rub her back and legs and stuff, and she said she wasn't really comfortable with it but she didn't know if it was right or not. She used to sit on her mother's lap all the time and that felt okay, but why didn't it feel okay when she was sitting on Mr. Hunt's…I mean, on the guest's…lap?"

                Ororo's amusement disappeared. This sounded like the hysterical explanation Joey had given her a couple months ago when she'd been beaten. Joey had never talked about again, and had steered away from the subject when Ororo tried to ask, but it had stayed on her mind, troubling her. She thought carefully now about what to say. "How old was your friend?" she asked.

                "Thirteen, like me," and Ororo knew with certainty that Joey was talking about herself. But if she said that, the girl would stop talking. Ororo wanted to know how far this man had gotten, and where he was now.

                "Listen to me, Joey," she said, and her voice was serious. "What that man…did…was very wrong. She was much too young to understand what that meant, and he was sick, mentally, for doing that to her. She was a very wise little girl for feeling that it wasn't right, because it wasn't. It is not right for anyone over the age of eighteen to touch anyone younger than they are. Some teenaged boys and girls do it anyway, because they love each other, and they want to express that love physically, but for anyone under the age of sixteen it's very, very wrong. And if the person doing it is caught, they'll go to jail because the law says they can't do that. Do you understand?"

                Joey nodded, not looking at Ororo. Her shoulders, which had been drawn up around her ears, slowly relaxed. Somewhat, but not all the way. "He'd walk into her room at night, when she was supposed to be asleep, and he'd stand there looking at her and rubbing his stomach under his bellybutton," she said, pointing to her own abdomen. "She didn't think that was right either. She was afraid. She never opened her eyes; she pretended she was asleep when he did that."

                A cold knot of fear settled in the pit of Ororo's stomach. Whoever this was, if he was doing that…would he stop there, or would he force Joey to do more, to do something else that would hurt her? The thought made her sick. She couldn't let that happen. "Joey," she said, "Did your friend know how to protect herself if he ever tried to touch her while she was in bed at night?"

                "No," Joey's voice was small. "She's scared of him. He's…he was…so much bigger than her, and she's afraid he's going to hurt her if she tries to protect herself."

                Ororo glanced at her watch quickly, then sighed. "You're going to have to go soon, but Joey, will you meet me at the lake tomorrow?" she said. "It is really important. I want to take you back to the mansion with me. I want to show you how to protect yourself…if anything like that happens to you," she added quickly. "My friend Remy will help me demonstrate. Will you come?"

                Joey nodded, looking relieved. Her shoulders relaxed completely. "I'll come," she said. Dusting the crumbs off her lap, she finished off her juice and hugged Ororo before slipping out of the greenhouse.

                Ororo re-wrapped her own sandwich, appetite gone. Hunt. The last name was Hunt. She'd have to ask Charles if he knew anyone by that name. If the man was staying in the same house with Joey, he was probably a family friend. Maybe Charles would remember if Joey's father had any friends by that name.

                She retraced her steps to the mansion, went in by the back door, and was unpacking the picnic basket when Charles himself came in. He paused in the act of opening the refrigerator to get a bottle of water and then turned to Ororo. "You are disturbed."

                Her lips twitched into a smile. "Yes. How could you tell?" Her voice was heavy with irony, and Charles noticed.

                "Sit down, Ororo. Please. What is it? Is it Joey?" He'd seen her taking the half-eaten sandwich out of the basket.

                Ororo nodded. "We were talking about her birthday coming up, and she was talking about her clothes. They're getting tight. We were talking about her physical development, and she started asking me about boys and kissing. It seemed harmless enough. Then she asked me…well, she said she knew a 'friend' back in France… who was living in the same house as a stranger, and he was doing things and touching her where she wasn't comfortable being touched." Xavier stared at her, horrified, as Ororo spoke quietly. "Joey said…she said this 'friend' of hers would be in bed at night when this stranger, Mr. Hunt, would come into this 'friend's' room and touch himself while he watched her sleeping. The 'friend' was scared, and always pretended that she was sleeping when the stranger came to her room."

                "She didn't say it was herself?"

                "Joey slipped. She said 'he's so much bigger' and I knew she was not talking about a 'friend', she's talking about herself. I asked her to come here tomorrow; I want to show her how to protect herself. Since she knows Remy, I was planning on asking if he would help me with a little 'demonstration' of some basic self-defense tactics. She is a small child, and I realize whoever this man is will be bigger than herself, but at least she could catch him off guard long enough to run to someone else in the house for help. He will not try anything with anyone else there. That is all I can think of to do, Charles. Unless she comes straight out and asks for help, this is all I can do."

                'That's all any of us can do," Xavier said grimly. "I've been trying to call her father. I've left messages with his secretary, but they keep telling me I've just missed him, or that he's in a meeting, or that he's left this country and gone to the office in another country…" he sighed. "I'm not having much luck. See what you can do for Joey." He turned and started to leave the kitchen, and then stopped. "Her birthday is coming up?"

                "In two days. She said her father sends her money every year, exactly two days before her birthday, so she can spend it on whatever she likes. She's waiting for the mailman to come today so she can get her birthday money. She says she hopes she can get Mrs. Seward to take her shopping, because she needs new clothes."

                "Shouldn't there be an allowance in the household budget for her clothing? I find it odd that Henry would forget something so basic."

                "Joey's nanny said that there was no allowance for her clothes."

                Xavier shook his head ruefully. "Poor girl. Yet another thing I have to talk to her father about. It doesn't seem like him, somehow. Oh well. Would any new clothes we buy her be noticed?"

                Ororo nodded. "Mrs. Seward is extremely strict. But perhaps some basic things, like jeans and plain shirts, could be slipped in if they were the same brand and color as what she is presently wearing. She could change out of them here and wear the new ones in, and her nanny might not notice."

                Xavier smiled. "Let me go and hunt out my credit card. It has been a while since I used it; perhaps a little airing wouldn't go amiss…" He smiled as he glided out.

                Ororo finished unpacking the picnic basket, finished her water, and was about to head off to Charles' study when the back door opened and Remy came in. "Remy. Just the person I wanted to see," Ororo said. 'I wonder if you would consider doing me a favor."

                "Sure, chere," Remy said. "Want Remy to take you shopping? I can do dat."

                "How did you know I was planning on going shopping…" Ororo blinked.

                "Seen dat look in your eye, chere," Remy said. "You girls always get dat look. An' figured you'd ask me because dere ain't nobody home right now."

                Ororo smiled. "In that case, yes, I would welcome your company on my shopping expedition. But I was actually going to ask you something else." She told Remy about what Joey had said. "I want to show her some basic self-defense moves," she said. "She's too small to do any real damage to a larger attacker, but hopefully she can distract him, catch him off guard long enough to get away. However, I need a man to demonstrate moves on."

                Remy eyed her. "Is dis goin' to hurt?"

                Ororo laughed. "I will not hurt you, Remy. Honestly."

                Remy shrugged. "Well, in dat case…lead on."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

                Ororo hadn't even stepped out of the mansion the next day when there was a knock. She opened the back door to see Joey standing there. "Mr. King was sick today," she said. "So he let me out early. I came right here."

                "Come on in!" Ororo smiled at her and held the door open. "Remy hasn't gotten back from the store yet, so we'll have to wait for him." Joey stepped into the kitchen.

                "I was just doing something in the dining room, so if you come this way, we can talk while I finish…" Ororo walked toward the darkened dining room. Joey followed her. Just as she reached the doorway to the dining room, the lights flicked on. Remy, Jean, Hank, and Charles called "Surprise!"

                Joey stumbled backward a few steps, staring surprised at the dining room table. It was laden with a large chocolate cake, and several packages wrapped in bright paper with pretty bows and ribbon. The cake had 'Happy Birthday Joey' written on it in pink icing.

                "Oh my gosh," She stuttered, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh my gosh!" She turned to Ororo and hugged her, tears of gratitude filling her eyes. "Thank you so much."

                Ororo hugged her back briefly, and kissed the top of the girl's head before steering her gently toward the table. 'Eat your cake and open your presents before you say anything else."

                Remy lit the candles on the cake, ad they sang happy birthday for Joey before she blew out the candles. Jean helped her cut the cake and put it on plates, then they all started eating. "Did your father send you a birthday card or anything?" Jean said casually.

                "No," And they all heard the bitterness in her voice. "No, he usually sends me money for my birthday so I can buy what I want, but he didn't send me anything this year, not even a card." Tears filled her eyes, and she stabbed her cake with her fork.

                Xavier frowned. **That doesn't sound like Henry at all,** he said to Ororo. **He wouldn't forget her birthday like that.**

                **Do you think maybe her nanny intercepted the card and took the money?** Jean asked as Joey started chatting with Hank and Remy.

                **Why would she do that?** Xavier asked, puzzled. **Henry pays her for watching over Joey, so she'd have no reason to steal the child's money.**

                Jean shrugged. **It was just a thought.** Aloud, she said to Joey, "We didn't get you a lot of things, and we know you can't take them all back with you today, but Ororo and Charles thought that maybe you could change out of your jeans now and wear the new ones back. That way Mrs. Seward won't notice."

                'You got me clothes?" Joey abandoned the cake excitedly and headed for the pile of presents. Amused, Hank took the remainder of the cake to the kitchen and Remy started handing her gifts to her one by one. "Dis is from me," he said, handing her a box. "Dis is from Jean, dis from Hank, dis from Charles, and dese two be from 'Ro."

                Joey opened the packages. Jean and Ororo had each gotten her three pairs of jeans and four plain t-shirts in white, blue, green, and pink. Ororo had also bought her a new trowel, shovel, and rake gardening set. Hank had gotten her a small but thick field guide to flowers and greenhouse plants. It had detailed instructions on how to grow each kind of flower, when to fertilize and how often to water it, as well as full-color photographs of each plant. Joey exclaimed over the book, flew out of her chair to hug him, then opened Xavier's gift. Inside was a full artist's set; a box containing a set of colored pencils, oil pastels, watercolor and acrylic paints, and a set of good drawing pencils, with an eraser and a storage space for the large pad of drawing paper he had also told Ororo to get.

                "How did you know?" she asked him with shining eyes.

                "Henry told me once that his daughter loved drawing. He showed me a drawing you did that you'd sent him. He said he kept it in his briefcase all the time."

                Joey fought tears again. "He doesn't love me anymore," she said, brushing the tears away.

                "Joey, that's not true," Xavier said gently. "Your father's busy. He may have simply forgotten. He still loves you, I know he does."

                "No he doesn't," Joey sad bitterly. "He always used to remember. He always sent me my birthday card every year, two days before, exactly. He promised me last year. But last year I was with my mother. He doesn't love me anymore because Maman died."

                "It wasn't your fault, Joey," Jean said, distressed. She could feel the little girl's bitterness, and it hurt.

                "But it was," Joey buried her face in her hands. "It was my fault. We were in the car going to the library because I just had to have a new book for my book report. I already had books at home I could have used, but I wanted something new, so I talked Maman into taking me to the library. She wasn't feeling well, but she got up anyway because I nagged at her. We were crossing the intersection I when another car slammed into the driver's side of the car. I heard Maman scream, and that was all. I screamed as my legs broke, and I passed out from the pain. I think I woke up several times over the next three days, but the doctors and nurses put me right back to sleep. By the time I woke up enough to remember what happened, Uncle Louis told me Maman was dead. I didn't even get to say goodbye before they buried her. They didn't let me go to the funeral. Afterward it was my cousin Francis who told me that it was my fault Maman died, and everybody hated me for that, and that was why I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. And he said they hated me for what I'd done, and that was why I couldn't stay in France with them. I had to come here. Papa must hate me for causing Maman's death, and that must be why he doesn't love me anymore. Mrs. Seward says I should count myself lucky that he didn't just send me to an orphanage."

                Ororo clamped her lips shut over what she was about to say, and just held her gently. "It wasn't your fault, Joey," she said instead. "Your father doesn't hate you. He couldn't; you're his little girl, his baby. Your mother's death wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it. You weren't driving the car that ran into yours, were you?" Joey shook her head wordlessly. 'Then it wasn't your fault. Here. Open Remy's gift before he dies of impatience." Joey took the package without comment.

                Remy had bought Joey a huge box of French chocolates. Joey stared, bug-eyed at them, then looked at him with tears in her eyes. "How did you know these were my favorites?" She opened the box, took one out, and popped it into her mouth. "Oh, jeez, I missed these. Thank you all so much," and she went around the table hugging them all around the neck. She gave Ororo a thank you kiss on the cheek, and Jean, but both women noticed she was a little more restrained with her thanks for the guys. Hank and Jean set about clearing the table as Charles said, "You may leave the drawing things here. I don't mind. You can come here when ever you want to and use them."

                "I can? Oh, thank you!" and she hugged him gently.

                 "Now, if a man is coming at you from the front, do this." Ororo stood straight and gestured for Remy to come at her. He stood in front of her, reaching for her, and she brought her foot forward to step on his foot effortlessly, then brought her knee up. Not hard enough to really hurt, but Remy acted like it did, doubling over, grabbing his middle, and falling to the grassy lawn with a melodramatic groan.

                Joey giggled. "She got you good, huh, uncle Remy?"

                Remy opened one eye and glared at her in mock dismay. "Enjoying dis, eh, _p'tite_?" he growled. "Let's see how well you learn!" he tackled her head on, bowling her over. Joey brought her knee up and pistoned it into his groin. She wasn't strong enough to hurt him, but he fell into the grass, groaning in feigned pain, then opened one eye as Ororo came to stand over him, hands on her hips. "You a good teacher, 'Ro," he said finally, grinning. "She learn quick."

                Ororo sat down in the grass beside Joey and Remy, plucking a long stem and tickling his nose with it. "Well, she's a good student, don't you think?"

                "Oui," he said, grinning. "She a good student." He grabbed the grass stem from 'Ro and said, 'Time to get you back for usin' me as your guinea pig!" He attacked her, rolling her in the grass as his hands traveled up and down her ribs, tickling her.

                Ororo rolled around under him, laughing. She was acting silly, she knew that; she didn't normally roll around in the grass like this, but she felt better now that Joey understood what to do. She rolled over, pinning him down as she tickled him, and for just a second she wished Joey wasn't there and that Remy wasn't currently involved with a girl…

                Remy sensed her thoughts, winked at her, and got up before she was tempted any further. They both turned as Joey cleared her throat delicately. "I could go," she said, with a shy grin.

                "Oh, no, stay," Ororo said. "Remy had something he needed to do, right?"

                Remy took the hint. "Yes, I did," he said. "See you sometime, _p'tite_.' He ruffled her hair as he passed her on his way back into the house. Once inside, however, he dawdled by the refrigerator, listening. Joey had her back to the house, so she didn't see; but Ororo did. And didn't mind.

                "Is he your boyfriend?"

                Ororo laughed as she sat back on the grass and played with the stem. "No, he is not," she said. "We are simply very good friends. Although, yes, we did go out once, for a brief time."

                "Did you ever kiss?"

                Ororo smiled. "Yes, we did."

                Joey wrinkled her nose. "Was it yucky?" at Ororo's look, she blushed again. "Well, I saw this girl at my school once, she was a lot older, and she had this boyfriend, and they were lip locked all the time…us younger kids all thought it looked yucky, but I wonder if it really is."

                Ororo considered that for a moment, looking up at the puffy white clouds in the endless blue sky above them. "It isn't 'yucky' if the person you're kissing cares about you, and you care about them," she said. "If someone tries to kiss you, and it feels yucky to you, then that person isn't the 'right' person. If it doesn't feel right, don't let them near you. Do what Remy and I showed you today; that should discourage him from going any further and you shouldn't have any more problems."

                "Miss Ororo?"

                She looked at the girl. "Yes?"

                "Thank you." Joey turned pink. "For everything. The party, the presents, the cake and all that…I was kind of not feeling so good today, because nobody remembered it was my birthday, and I was trying not to care so much, but it still kinda hurt."

                "Oh, Joey." Ororo ran an arm across Joey's back and pulled her closer to her side. Joey snuggled up next to her side, leaning against Ororo as she hugged her back, and they sat like that for a while. "I am your friend, Joey. I'll never take the place of your mother; I don't want to. But if you'd consider me a sort of big sister, I'd be honored."

                "I've always wanted a big sister or brother," Joey said shyly.

                "Well, while we're on that topic," Ororo said as she gently tweaked the tip of Joey's nose, "will you do something for me?"

                'Sure," Joey said. "What is it?"

                "Call me Ororo, like everyone else. You don't need to add the 'miss' if I'm your big sister."

                Joey giggled and tweaked Ororo's nose back. "Okay, Ororo," she said happily.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

                Joey opened her eyes at the faint creak of her bedroom door. She tensed as she heard the heavy footsteps cross her room from the door to stop beside her bed. She was glad it was getting colder at night, and Mrs. Seward didn't put the heat on, because it gave her an excuse to pull the blankets up to her chin. She knew _he_ could still see the shape of her body under the blankets, but she was careful to always turn away from the door and sleep facing the wall.

                She heard the quiet shhhhp of the zipper being pulled down, and forced herself to lie still and breathe evenly. She kept her eyes closed. She didn't want to see what he was doing; she hated him.

                His breathing picked up, and she had to struggle to keep from making a face of disgust. She didn't understand why he rubbed his tummy like that, or why his breathing got heavier when he did it. She just knew that she hated it, and that he made her feel weird when he did it. She felt ashamed, for some reason. Soiled. Yucky. She didn't understand why; she wanted to ask Ororo about it, but she was afraid to.

                His breathing got louder and louder, and heavier and heavier, and finally he started to grunt. He gave a few low ones, then one that sounded like he was almost in pain, and then he went quiet. His breathing slowed down. She heard him zip himself up and walk out of her room. Finally alone, she buried her face in her pillow and let the hot tears flow from her eyes. Why had Papa sent that nasty man here? And when was he going to leave? Would she ever see Papa again? Or would he leave her here, forever and ever, with these hateful people who didn't like her and never let her do anything fun?

                She turned her thoughts away. If she got her pillow all wet with tears again like she did last night she'd get another scolding in the morning from Mrs. Seward. Resolutely, she turned her mind toward something else. She was going to use those new paints and stuff to do Mr. Xavier a drawing, to thank him for getting her that set. It was a wonderful gift; her mother had bought her one for her birthday last year, but it had gotten tossed out with the rest of her stuff when Uncle Louis cleaned out their apartment after her mother died.

                But what would she draw? She lay awake there, in the dark, thinking of all the possible things she could draw for him, and finally decided on a picture of her garden in France. He had to sit in a wheelchair all the time, and she guessed that he probably couldn't get out into Ororo's garden all that often, so maybe he'd like a picture of a garden.

                A sudden inspiration struck her. Why not do a painting of Ororo's garden? So he could see what it really looked like? Yes, that was it. Give him a garden in perpetual bloom, use the brightest, prettiest colors for the flowers that she could, and cheer up whatever room he chose to put it in with pretty colors. Yes. That's what she would do. She turned over in bed, smiling. She'd sit down the next day and do some sketches of the garden from memory, figure out which view would be best. Should she do the view from the gate, with the iron bench off to one side, or should she do the view from the bench, catching the tangle of climbing roses and morning glories on the arch over the garden gate?

                She was still thinking about it as she drifted back to sleep.

                When she woke up the next morning and looked out the window, tiny white flakes were whirling down on the grass below. She smiled. She had seen snow in France, but not often. Here, in New York, winter started early, and she had heard that you could expect snow anytime after Halloween. It had been rather warm yesterday, so she didn't expect the snow to stick to the ground, but it was still fun seeing the snow.

                "Joette!" Mrs. Seward came in, and her sharp voice crushed Joey's good mood. "Standing in front of that drafty window in your nightgown! You'll catch cold. And what will the groundskeepers say?"

                "No one's going to be working on the grounds in the snow, Mrs. Seward," Joey pointed out as she climbed out of her window seat and pulled out her clothes. She disappeared in the bathroom with an annoyed roll of her eyes and quickly changed her clothes, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back in its usual ponytail before heading downstairs to breakfast.

                And once there, she got another surprise. Mr. King and Mrs. MacArthur, her tutors, had gone home for their two week holiday, and she had no classes.

                "That does not mean you can slack off, however, Joette," Mrs. Seward said curtly, crushing joey's hopes all at once. "There is a list of assignments you must complete by the time they return from their 'vacation, which, I might point out, was well-deserved. How we put up with a child like you is beyond me." She ate another bite of oatmeal as Mrs. Seward rambled on. The woman's next words, however, froze her completely.

                "I shall be going to visit my niece upstate today. I will be leaving later this morning, and returning tomorrow evening. I have already spoken to your father about it, and he has okayed it. This is cook's day off, but she has kindly prepared your evening meal and it will be ready for you to take out of the refrigerator and heat in the microwave when you get hungry. Your father was somewhat concerned with the idea ofleaving you here alone, but Michael will be here, and Mr. Hunt has kindly agreed to cancel whatever plands he has for today to babysit you. You will be on your best behavior, Joette, and you will listen to what he says. I expect you to behave in front of him exactly as you would behave before me. He has my authority to use the yardstick on you should you be so disobedient as to need it."

                Joey stared with round eyes at Mrs. Seward. Surely she couldn't mean it. A whole day trapped in the house with nobody but him…her skin prickled with dread. Well, except for her free time, surely she could slip down to see Ororo that afternoon…

                Mrs. Seward quashed that hope. "As it is snowing outside, I expect you to stay in the house. You are forbidden to go out to your precious greenhouse. It is winter, nothing is growing, you have no reason to go. You will remain in the house, do you understand?"

                Joey dropped her eyes to her bowl. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. If she stayed in her room, made no noise, drew no attention to herself, she could make it through the afternoon without having to see his hateful face. She could lock the nursery door.

                As soon as breakfast was over she ran upstairs to the library and started working on those assignments. She worked assiduously, concentrating extremely hard on her work, and when Mr. Hunt came to see her, and she heard him speak her name quietly, she pretended that she didn't hear him. He didn't speak again, and she finally heard him close the library door and leave. She breathed a sigh of relief, waited until she heard his footsteps leave the nursery wing, and then took out her drawing pad and pencils.

                She worked on several different sketches, starting with the view from the garden bench, then moved onto the view from the gate, and progressed to the rose trellis and bushes. Nothing looked right, and she was about to give up when she remembered the larger garden, the mixed flower one, and the fish pond. Smiling, she started a sketch of that, and by the time her stomach rumbled and the waning light told her it was dinnertime she had a decent sketch of the garden, pond, and flowers and shrubbery. She'd even included the frog, sitting on a lily pad. She thought about both gardens as she sat in the kitchen, eating her dinner, and finally decided to do a painting  of the mixed flower garden with the frog in it. Mr. Xavier would like that.

                She was thinking about the paint colors she had in the new set and wondering how she could sneak some of the colors she had in her closet here to the mansion. She had colors here that the new set didn't have that she would need to finish the painting. She had just decided to sneak them out to the greenhouse after dinner, since no one was around, when the kitchen door opened and Mr. Hunt stepped in.

                "Well hello," he said pleasantly, walking over to the refrigerator and digging around in it for something. He came up with a sandwich, unwrapped its plastic, and sat down opposite her at the table. "I wanted to talk to you earlier, but you were concentrating on your schoolwork, and you didn't hear me. I figured you'd get hungry later, though."

                Joey kept her head down and mumbled a faint answer. "I didn't hear you," Mr. Hunt said. "What did you say?"

                "Nothing," Joey said slightly louder. "I said I was sorry I didn't hear you."

                "Well, the reason I was coming to get you was so you could watch the new cartoon movie with me," he said. "It was on earlier, and I thought maybe you'd want to watch it with me. You were studying then, but now that you're done, maybe we can catch it again on rerun. It's going to play again this evening. Unless you have anything else you absolutely have to do." His tone was slightly sarcastic.

                Joey could think of a lot of things she'd rather do than sit watching some stupid cartoon movie with, of all people, _this_ man. What kind of adult man watched cartoons, anyway? "I have some things I need to do, Mr. Hunt," she said, trying to sound as polite as possible. "Maybe another night?" _Maybe never?_ her mind added.

                "Well, now," Mr. Hunt was still smiling, but now there was an unpleasant edge to the smile. "I wasn't going to be rude about it, but I would really like you to join me in watching the movie. You will, won't you? After all," and his smile suddenly looked to her like a shark eyeing up a particularly delicious fish, "You wouldn't want me to tell Mrs. Seward you were being disobedient and I had to use the yardstick on you, do you?"

                Joey slowly raised her eyes to meet his, and was paralyzed by the predatory look in them. Whatever it was that he'd been trying to do with her all these months, he was going to finally do tonight. She had done her best; she'd told Mrs. Seward that she didn't like Mr. Hunt, she'd told the butler and the maids and the cook about him trying to get her to sit on his lap, him rubbing her shoulders and feet and legs, but everyone told her she was just making up stories and Mr. Hunt was just being friendly. Only Ororo had seemed concerned.

                She didn't want to get a beating. Mr. Hunt was bigger than Mrs. Seward, much bigger, and he could probably hit harder. And when Mrs. Seward came back tomorrow and she saw the bruises, she would know Joey had gotten a beating for being disobedient, and she would give Joey another one for not being polite. So if she didn't go along with what he said now she would get two beatings.

                And besides, Ororo had taught her how to get Mr. Hunt to leave her alone, right? She would just do those things to him, and he would leave her alone. Maybe he'd leave her alone permanently after this. Joey put her plate in the sink, washed it silently as Mr. Hunt finished his sandwich, and followed him to his room.

                When they were almost there he stopped. "Go put on your nightclothes," he told her. "That little white nightgown with the ruffles."

                "No!" Joey stepped back. "It's too small. I don't wear it anymore. Besides, I haven't taken my bath yet and I'm not going to go to bed yet."

                She was completely unprepared for what he did next.

                He grabbed her arm and half-dragged her down the hall to her room. "Get that nightgown out," he said in a low, dangerous voice. Shaking, she went to her dresser and got the nightgown out from the back. "Put it on," he told her. She crossed her arms. "I am not going to undress in front of you," she said, although her voice shook a little.

                "Get those clothes off now!"

                Joey ducked under his arm and ran for the bathroom. He was a little slow to react, and she got in and locked the door behind her. He pounded on the door furiously for a couple minutes as she got the nightgown on.

                She hadn't worn it in a while, and it was definitely too small. The hem came to the middle of her shin, where before it had brushed the floor; and it was pulled tightly across her developing bust. She felt embarrassed, looking at it; but the bathroom door burst open as Mr. Hunt broke the lock.

                He stood there, looking at her in the nightgown, and his breathing picked up. Joey suddenly felt horribly humiliated, but at least he didn't look mad enough to use the yardstick anymore. "Come and watch the movie," he said finally.

                She followed him down the hall to his room. He sat down on his bed and took his shirt off, and Joey tried to look at anything in the room but him. He had a thick mat of hair across his chest and some on his back and shoulders. She didn't like the way he looked.

                He patted the bed beside him but she ignored him and went to sit on the clothes chest at the foot of the bed, keeping her eyes glued to the TV screen. It was some stupid commercial for laundry detergent, but she didn't care what it was as long as it kept her from having to look at the man sitting in the big bed behind her.

                Joey kept her eyes on the TV screen as the movie started, even though it was stupid and she hated it. When it was over, she breathed a sigh of relief, got up, and started to head for the door. She was going to go and take this stupid nightgown off and throw it in the trash, then she would finish her drawing, take her bath, and go to bed.

                "Where are you going?" Mr. Hunt said, leaning back in his bed. "There's another movie coming up."

                "I have to take my bath and go to bed," she said, relieved that her voice didn't shake. Without another word, she headed for her room and got her regular nightclothes out and disappeared into the bathroom.

                She had forgotten that he'd broken the lock. Well, she'd skip the bath and just take a quick shower. She stripped off the nightgown, climbed in, and closed the glass shower door. The hot spray of water pounding down on her body felt good, and for a few minutes she forgot about Mr. Hunt.

                It was something of a shock then, as she opened the door, to find him standing in front of her holding her towel. She screamed in shock and slammed the glass door shut, shaking. "Get out of my bathroom!" She screamed at him.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

                "Tsk, tsk. You're not being very polite," he said. "Shall I get the yardstick, see if that makes you more polite?"

                She didn't have to be polite when he was intruding on her like this. "Get out of my bathroom!" She screamed again. "Get out get out GET OUT!"

                The shower door flew open, and she cringed in the back of the stall, trying to cover her body with her hands. He grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the small space, ignoring her efforts to fight against his pull. She tripped over the edge of the tub as he lifted her out, and fell to her knees on the floor, dripping water on the linoleum. He towered over her, dropping the towel beside her as she scrambled back against the side of the tub. "Stop it. Leave me alone!" she screamed at him. Her hands found the towel and she started to pull it around her nude body.

                He tried to rip the towel out of her hands, but she clung to it and kicked out at his ankle. Her foot connected, and he grunted in pain. "That's it, girl," he snarled at her "You made me mad now!" He turned and stormed out of the bathroom.

                She scrambled to dry herself as fast as she could, but just as she was pulling her regular pajama shirt over her head he exploded back into the bathroom, and he was holding the yardstick. She didn't even have time to react as he raised it and brought it down on her bare, wet thigh. Crying out with the sudden pain, she backed away from him until she was up against the wall. There was nowhere else to go after that, and all she could do was curl up on the floor and try to protect her face as he beat her mercilessly.

                She barely realized it when the blows stopped. Her legs, backside, torso, and arms were bruised and smarting from the blows, and the pain was excruciating. She was still sobbing in pain when he grabbed one arm and rolled her over, ripped her pajama shirt off and replaced it with the nightgown. Then she heard the sound of his zipper sliding down.

                That sound snapped her out of her pain-filled daze.  Screaming in anger and pain, she brought her foot up and kicked him, hard, right where Ororo had told her would hurt most. He gave a funny grunt, and she wiggled out from under him, heading for her room.

                It didn't stop him for long, though. She heard him lumbering down the hall to her room, and she thought desperately. Where could she go where he wouldn't find her? The answer came to her as she stared out the nursery window to the greenhouse. Her greenhouse, her refuge. She would be safe there; he couldn't get her in there. She had the key. She could lock him out.

                Gathering her legs under herself, she staggered off down the hall and down the stairs. Behind her she heard an enraged bellow as Mr. Hunt came after her. She limped as best as she could down the stairs, out the back door, and through the swirling white snow to her greenhouse, where she fumbled around her neck for the key that hung from a chain around it. She unlocked the door, fell inside the small structure, and sighed as she sank to the floor, sobbing in pain. Her arms were welted and bruised, and the bruises went down her body to her legs. With the way she had been curled up on the bathroom floor he had even hit her feet a couple of times, and her feet were throbbing.  Adrenaline had kept her going to the greenhouse, but now that she was safe, the pain made itself felt.

                "Get out here!" Came a harsh growl from outside the greenhouse, and Joey trembled. She was safe in here, she had to keep telling herself that, he wouldn't come in here, he couldn't come in here, this was _her_ place. No one came in here.

                Then suddenly there was a tremendous crash, and a second later, icy cold flakes were swirling in through the suddenly door-less opening.  She screamed in terror as she saw Mr. Hunt standing there, his coat carelessly thrown over his bare shoulders and his pants hanging open, unzipped.

                He glared down at her coldly. "You hurt me," he snarled. "You hurt me. Look at me!" And he angled his hips forward, and Joey got her first look at the male body. She hated it. She wanted to throw up. She turned her face away, trying to erase the sight of that long, thick, upright _thing _between his legs, framed by the open zipper.

                He grabbed her hair and hauled her up off the cement floor, bringing her face close to his groin. "Open your mouth!" He yanked her head back so far her mouth opened involuntarily, and he shoved his _thing_ into her mouth.

                She gagged, retched, and choked. For one wild moment, she thought about just clamping down with her teeth, but the very thought made her sick. She pounded her fists on his leg, then reached up and raked the exposed skin of his lower belly with her hands.

                He thrust her away with a curse, and she stumbled back, right up against the shelves that held her precious rosebushes. With a crash all the shelves on that side came crashing down, and she howled in pain as planters shattered and flying pieces of pottery and thorny branches scratched her. A heavy blue flowerpot fell from a high shelf and broke over her head, and she crumpled, dazed from the impact.

                As if from a great distance she heard a roar. "You scratched me!" There was a strange whistling sound, and then suddenly pain exploded along her legs. She screamed in terror as her tear-blurred eyes picked up the sight of the long, thick leather belt, doubled in the fist held over her. It hovered there for a moment, then crashed down on her again. Again, and again, and again.

                She was only half-conscious when he finally stopped. She barely felt his hands on her legs, flipping up the hem of the nightgown. The pain, as he forced into her body, snapped her out of her daze. She screamed.

                He ignored her cries and shoved brutally into her again. She cried hysterically, begging him to get off her, to stop hurting her, but he didn't stop. Frantic, her hands groped for something, anything, to hit him with, and by chance she grabbed the planter that had hit her on the head. She brought it up in her hands and smashed it over his head.

                He grunted in pain, cursed her, and slammed his fist into her cheek. She tasted blood in her mouth. The fresh pain broke her spirit, and she stopped fighting. Her hands dropped limply to her sides and she fell silent, staring with empty eyes at the ceiling of the greenhouse.

                He stopped thrusting into her, staring at her empty eyes. 'Move, damn you," he snarled at her. She lay still. He got off her, and the pain of his exit started her crying again. She shrieked in terror as he raised the belt again and snapped her thighs closed. It wasn't her legs he was aiming for this time, though.

                She shrieked in agony as he flailed at her front with the belt, striking her breasts. The thin material, stretched too tight, tore as he continued his assault on her, and her bare flesh took the brunt of the beating. She finally collected enough of her wits to crawl to her knees, turning her back to him as she tried to reach the door of the greenhouse.

                He threw the belt down and grabbed her ankle with one hand. She tugged, but was too weak to free herself. He flipped up the nightgown, exposing her bare bottom, covered with ugly welts from her beating. And then fresh pain erupted in her body as he forced into her roughly again.

                A long time, an eternity later, the pounding stopped. He got up off her body and zipped up his pants, then grabbed her hair and pulled her head up. "Don't stay out here too long, little girl. Lots more fun waiting inside." He left the greenhouse with a cruel laugh.

                Joey lay on the floor for a long while, lost in her anguish and pain. The cold snow drifting on the floor and around her ankles finally got her moving. She dragged herself up, and hung onto the doorframe of the greenhouse, gathering up her strength. She wasn't going back. She was not going to walk back into that house and face more pain, more abuse. Instead, her stumbling steps took her away from her house, toward the lake, and the mansion that lay across the lake, and Ororo's comforting arms.

                The cold snow numbed her feet as she trudged wearily toward the lake. Her mind was numbed by cold and pain, and she lost her footing on the steep slope leading down to the lake. She fell all the way down the slope, and when she got up, her nightgown was soaked through with snow that melted in the faint heat coming from her body. Her shivering increased, and she fell to her knees in the snow. Her body cried out for rest; she wanted so badly to lie down there and not move again; but her survival instinct was stronger than her exhaustion and pain, and she continued to drag herself, step by painful step, toward Xavier's back door. Her feet, swollen from the beating, split open when she reached the edge of the gravel path leading to the back door, leaving bleeding tracks in the snow. Stumbling now, she dragged herself wearily the last few steps to the door and knocked weakly.

                Remy sauntered into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and grabbed a soda. He was about to leave when he heard a faint thump. He frowned; where was that noise coming from? He listened. It wasn't repeated. Shrugging, he was about to leave the kitchen when he heard the thump again.

                He dropped his mental shields, the ones around his empathy, and staggered as the wave of raw pain hit him like a tidal wave. He snapped up his shields reflexively, but before he had gotten himself fully under control he was yanking open the back door. A slender figure in a tattered, bloodstained white nightgown fell into the kitchen as the door opened.

                Remy knew who it was. He grabbed one limp arm, blue from the cold outside, and dragged the body into the kitchen, then slammed and locked the door. If anyone was after little Joey, they wouldn't be getting her in here. "Joey," he knelt over her urgently. "Joey."

                "Remy?" those indigo eyes opened…well, one did. The other was almost swollen shut by a huge, ugly bruise. 'Where's Ororo?"

                "I'll get her for you as soon's I get you down in de medlabs," he said, slipping his arms under her body and lifting her carefully. His skin jumped as the snow-soaked, cold material touched his bare chest, but he ignored the instinct to jerk away from the cold and instead leaned into it, hoping to warm her up with his body heat as much as possible. It took a few minutes for him to realize she had started to cry when he picked her up. "What wrong, p'tite?" he asked, slowing in his headlong rush down the hall.

                "My…back…" and then she went limp. Remy shook his head. Get her to the medlabs first, ask questions later.

                He took the steps down to the Rec Room as fast as he could, her slight weight no real burden to him. Hank and Bobby were playing a video game in front of the TV; Hank abandoned it immediately when he saw Remy's face. He sprang to the hidden entrance to the lower levels and opened the door for Remy. "Down here, Remy, hurry. Bobby," he said to the younger man hovering behind him, "Call Jean, and Charles. And Ororo; if I am not mistaken this is her young friend."

                Joey stirred as Remy put her down on one of the biobeds. She cried out weakly as Hank started to try and pull the sodden material off her body, and her hands came up to try and prevent them. "Joey. It's me, Hank, Ororo's friend. Let me take a look at your injuries."

                "No," Joey shrank away from him. "No, please, don't hurt me, please…" and her hands flailed at his preventing Hank from looking at her.

                Bobby ran as fast as he could down the hallway. Charles was in his study, doing a little paperwork; he looked up as Bobby burst in. He was about to chide him on not knocking when he got a good look at Bobby's face, and what he wanted to say died on his lips. "Joey," Bobby gasped out. 'Remy just brought her in. She's hurt bad. Where's Ororo?"

                Xavier flicked a telepathic thought upstairs. **Ororo?**

                Her answer was immediate. _Yes, Charles?_

                **Joey is here. Bobby said Remy bought her in, and that she is hurt. I don't know anything beyond that. Hurry down, please.**

                Ororo jumped off her bed upstairs and ran down the attic stairs. Then, her heart in her throat, she spurned the stairs and flew straight down them, down the hall to the kitchen, and across the Rec Room. Seconds later, she was pelting as fast as she could toward the medlabs.

                Joey was there…and Ororo's heart twisted in her chest painfully. She was wearing the remnants of a plain white nightgown that was now streaked liberally with blood and mud. She was crying as she fended off Hank's attempts to remove the sodden nightgown.

                "Joey…" The girl turned her face toward her friend, and Ororo gasped as she saw the bruise swelling one eye. "Joey, what happened?…no, don't sit up, let Hank take a look at you…"

                "No," Joey pleaded. "No men…please…Mr. Hunt hurt me, he beat me and he…he put his _thing_ inside my body, it hurt so bad…" and she started crying again. Ororo sucked in a gasp of horror and anger as she folded the little girl in her arms and held her. "Ssshh. It's all over. He won't hurt you here…I promise. Here. Hold out your arm, let Hank give you some medicine that will help..." But the terrified child clung to her, refusing to let Hank touch her. Finally Jean took the syringe from Hank and took the girl's arm gently. Joey sobbed a little as the needle entered her arm vein, but seconds later her eyelids fluttered closed, and she wilted in Ororo's arms.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

                Charles, Ororo, and Remy were still sitting outside the med lab, waiting for news, when Jean and Hank finally came out an hour later. Hank spoke to Ororo first. "She will be all right," he said quietly. "She is in shock right now; it is to be expected. She's badly bruised and battered, but those will fade with time." He hesitated.

                "Give me the bad news," Ororo said quietly, sensing there was something more. "If she's just bruised, where did all that blood on her nightgown come from?"

                "The blood…" Hank paused, chewing his lower lip anxiously. "There's no easy way to say this…I guess…well, she was sexually assaulted."

                Ororo clamped her hands to her mouth to stifle her cry of anguish. Jean, sensing her friend's pain, stepped forward, hugging her tightly as Ororo stared at Hank with tear-filled eyes. Hank, unable to bear the sight of Ororo's face, looked down at Charles instead. His words, however, were for Ororo's benefit as much as Xavier's. "Her body tore around the point of entry," he said quietly. "Jean and I had to put stitches in. It will be intensely painful for the next few days, until she heals enough for me to remove them, so I will keep her heavily sedated. Her feet were cut up by the gravel on the path leading up to the back door, and she was also chilled through. Charles," he said, turning to Xavier, "What do you want me to do? Shall we keep her here, or shall I move her to the hospital in town?"

                "She came here for help and for comfort," Xavier said slowly. "I am not going to send her to a hospital. When she wakes up and doesn't find herself in familiar surroundings, she's going to be terrified. I don't want to traumatize her unnecessarily. And I want to know what happened."

                Hank looked relieved. "I was hoping you would say that," he said. "She shouldn't be moved, anyway. As to what happened…well, I could wake her long enough for you to talk to her. She was begging us to let her see Ororo; she will doubtless feel better after she sees you," he said to Ororo. "However, if you are visibly upset it will upset her further."

                Ororo wiped the tears from her face and swallowed the lump in her throat. "All right," she said. Hank waited another few minutes fro Ororo to straighten her clothes and hair, and then opened the door to the medlabs.

                Joey lay in the bed, her pale face almost the same color as the sheet covering her. Her eyes looked even more startlingly purple against the pallor of her skin, and it just accented the dark bruise under her right eye. Ororo stood there for a moment, fighting the urge to cry again, and got herself under control before she stepped forward and reached for the limp hand. The girl's nails were broken, and there was dirt under them. "Joey?"

                The girl's eyes opened partway, then she turned her head to look at Ororo. Her hand fought its way out from under the sheet, and she reached out to grasp Ororo's in a shaky grip. Ororo folded the small hand in her own, giving it a gentle squeeze as she said quietly, "Joey. Can you tell me what happened?"

                "It was Mr. Hunt," Joey said weakly. Hank and Charles, on the other side of the bed, leaned forward intently, but she ignored them, focusing on Ororo. "He walked in on me when I was taking my bath. I told him to get out. He said I wasn't being polite; he went to Mrs. Seward's room and got the yardstick and beat me. He put my old nightgown on me. It's too small, and it makes me look younger than I am, but he liked it, I guess. Then he pulled his zipper down. I heard him do it, and I got scared. I did what you told me to do, I kicked him right there where the zipper ends, and he fell over with a funny sound. I ran. I couldn't think of anywhere in the house I'd be safe, so I ran outside, went to the greenhouse. I locked the door I thought I was safe. But I wasn't; he sort of ripped the door off, I guess. He saw me sitting on the floor, and he…" Tears filled those indigo eyes. "He grabbed my hair and made me open my mouth, and then he…he put his thing in my mouth, and I felt like I was going to get sick…I dug my nails into his tummy. He shoved me away. I fell into the shelves, and all my plants fell down. Then he took his belt out of his pants, and he beat me with that. Then he got on top of me and he put himself inside me. It hurt, awfully. I screamed. I begged him to stop hurting me, I begged and begged him, but he didn't care, and he just kept going, so I picked up a flowerpot and hit him with it.

                "He got really, really mad. He picked up the belt again. I thought he was going to hit my legs, but he didn't. He hit my chest, and that really hurt. I tried to crawl away, but he wouldn't let me go, and he raped me again, and then he got up and told me to come back in when I was ready for more." Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Ororo gently wiped them away, being careful not to touch the bruise. "I couldn't go back, Ororo, I just couldn't, he hurt so bad…All I could think of was coming to you. You could make the pain stop." Her eyes overflowed again. "Please don't send me back. He'll kill me, I swear he will. And nobody's there to stop him; everybody's gone. Even Mrs. Seward, she went to visit a relative."

                "Ssshh." Ororo bent carefully over the bed and hugged the frail body gently. "You're not going anywhere. You'll stay right here as long as you want to. I'll stay with you. He won't get you here, no one will hurt you here. Trust me." And Joey sobbed into Ororo's shirt as Charles quietly left. Ororo saw Hank reaching for Joey's IV, and nodded imperceptibly as Hank injected a sedative. After a few moments Joey went limp again, and Ororo gently lowered her back to the bed and tucked the sheet back around her before following Hank out of the room.

                Charles was as close to being totally enraged as Ororo had ever seen him. He had clamped a tight psychic shield around his mind, to keep his anger from affecting the others around him, but his face was shuttered and closed, and Ororo could see the thin anger lines around his compressed lips.

                "I have been patient with her father," Xavier said, "But he obviously doesn't know about this. If you will excuse me, I am going to call all his offices until I find him, and I will tell him what's happened." He turned his hoverchair and headed for the elevator that would take him to his office.

                Jean patted Ororo's back gently. "'Ro, are you okay?"

                Ororo wiped away the tears that had been flowing unheeded down her cheeks. "I shall be all right, Jean," she told her friend, smiling weakly. "I am just…I…Seeing her in so much pain, Jean, it hurts. I didn't realize how much I cared about her."

                "You not de only one, chere," said Remy grimly. "How dat bastard could hurt a chil' like dat is beyond me. I wish I could go make him hurt like he hurt her." He turned on his heel and stalked off.

                Jean sighed. "Is there anything I can do?" she said gently to Ororo, who shook her head.

                "I am going upstairs to change, and then I'm coming back down," Ororo said. "She will look for me when she wakens; if I am not there she will panic again. I do not want to stress her out like that."

                "I'll wait here until you get back, then," Jean said. Ororo nodded once, then headed up to her room to change into her regular clothes and grab her book. It was going to be a long night.

                Charles called the Tokyo office first. No Henry LeFevre there. The secretary hadn't seen him since last week, and no, she had no idea where he was at the moment. However, she did think he had an appointment in the Paris office; maybe he should try there.

                He wasn't there. The secretary told Xavier to try the Vienna office. The Vienna office told him to call the Rome office. And so on it went. Xavier got more and more frustrated, and more and more angry, so by the time he dialed the number to the Brussels office he spoke almost rudely to the secretary. "Mr. LeFevre, please."

                "I'm sorry, sir, he's in a meeting right now, and can't be disturbed. If you'd give me your name I can have him call you back--"

                Xavier took a quick glance at the clock. It was almost three in the morning by now; in Brussels, it would be about nine in the morning. Joey had come to the back door around ten o'clock; that meant that, as Joey had been raped, Henry had been lying soundly, peacefully asleep in a hotel halfway around the world. The thought stoked the fuel of Xavier's rage, and he almost snapped at the secretary. "I'm sorry, I need to talk to him now. It won't wait." A sudden thought struck him, and he said, "My name is Dr. Xavier. I need permission from Mr. LeFevre to perform emergency surgery on his daughter, Joette Gourand." There was silence from the other end, and then the secretary spoke again. "If you'll wait a minute, Dr. Xavier, I'll get him on the line for you."

                Henry was sitting at the table, listening to one of his Brussels managers talk, when there came a tap at the door. Before he could even stand, his secretary poked her head in. "Call on Line 71 for you, Mr. LeFevre."

                "I told you I was not to be disturbed, Catherine," Henry started to say, annoyed, but she interrupted him.

                "Sir, I know you did, but the caller sounds urgent. He says he's a Dr. Xavier, and he needs your permission to perform emergency surgery on your daughter."

                "Surgery…Joette…emergency…" Henry bolted up out of his chair and ran into the office, where he snatched up the phone Cathy had laid down on the desk. "Doctor? Doctor, what is wrong with my daughter?"

                Xavier's voice was sharp as he responded. "Your houseguest, Mr. Hunt, brutally beat and raped your daughter. She came to my back door barely conscious, battered, and bleeding. My friend and personal physician Henry McCoy needs your consent to put stitches in her body where your guest tore her open."

                Henry's mouth fell open. "No…this can't be possible…Greg Hunt wouldn't do that…"

                Xavier sighed and softened his tone. Henry really sounded like this had taken him by surprise. 'According to Joey, he has been coming into her room at night when she's sleeping and relieves himself while he watches her. She tried to tell Mrs. Seward, the nanny you hired for her, but that woman refused to believe her and beat her with a yardstick for telling lies."

                "No…" Henry's breath left his body in a huge sob. "No…Oh, God, my little girl, my baby, what have I done…who are you, that you know all this?" he asked in a whisper.

                "Charles Xavier, Henry. Charlie X, from college? Remember? I own the house and property next door to you, and turned it into a school? One of my students, Ororo Munroe, has developed a close friendship with her. They both have an interest in horticultural pursuits. Ororo was the only one Joey could turn to after Mr. Hunt raped her." Xavier proceeded to tell Henry exactly what Joey had told them. "She is now a guest in my house, and will remain so. I will not allow her to return to her home, even if she were in a condition to be moved, which she is not. She has no wish to return home, either. My doctor saved every scrap of evidence, and when Joey wakes up and feels a little better, I will call the police and file assault, battery, statutory rape, and pedophilia charges against your houseguest."

                "No you won't," Henry said, pushing himself up against his secretary's desk. "I'll take the company plane and be at Kennedy by this afternoon, New York time," he said. "I am going to file the charges myself. But I have to see my baby first. Will you be expecting me?"

                "Yes," Xavier said. 'We'll be expecting you."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

                Jean slipped into the darkened medlabs, and a tear filled her emerald eyes. Ororo was slumped over, asleep, in a chair pulled up by Joey's bed. Her book sat on the floor beside the chair, forgotten. Ororo's head was pillowed on the side of the bed, Joey's right hand pressed gently against her cheek.

                Jean hated to disturb them, but they had to get Joey out of the medlabs and upstairs to a room. They couldn't bring her father down here, after all. "'Ro," she said quietly, shaking the sleeping woman's shoulder gently. "'Ro."

                Ororo sat up, rubbing her eyes, still moving carefully so as not to disturb the sleeping child. "Yes?" she whispered back.

                "Charles got a hold of Joey's father. He's taking a company plane back to New York. We have to get Joey upstairs into a regular room before he comes."

                Anger skimmed Ororo's eyes, and she stood stiffly, picking up her book and tucking it into the pocket of her robe. "So he finally comes, when it's too late to save her. He shouldn't be allowed to see her, Jean. He is nothing like a father should be to her."

                Jean sighed. "Charles and I agree with you. I'm as angry with her father as you are. But he is still her father, Ororo. He still has a right to see her. And in the end, isn't it up to her whether she wants to see him or not?" She gently took the girl in a telekinetic grasp and lifted her off the bed. "Grab that IV stand. Thank goodness Hank doesn't have any of the Shi'ar equipment attached to her, or we'll have a hard time moving her." The two women moved together out into the halls, and Jean led the way to the elevator Charles used. "I'll take the stand," she held out her hand, but Ororo ignored it. With a quiet hiss of breath, she got on the elevator.

                Jean didn't argue, but Ororo did notice she pushed the button that would adjust the speed on the elevator so that they would reach the second floor faster. "Thank you," she said softly, her voice tight and her eyes closed.

                Jean looked at the fingers clenched around the light aluminum pole that Joey's IV bag swung from. "Don't want you to have a claustrophobia-induced panic attack in here," she said gently. "You'll wake Joey up."

                Ororo remained quiet, closing her eyes as the elevator ascended past the first floor. She hated small spaces. Hated them with a passion. But for Joey…she would do almost anything for the little girl she'd come to care very much for over the last few months.

                The elevator opened at the second floor, and Jean let Ororo walk out first. Then she followed, still 'carrying' the sleeping child. They proceeded past the occupied rooms, to stop at the door leading to the large room at the west corner of the house. Ororo smiled as Jean opened the door. "Why are we putting her in my old room?" she asked as Jean floated the child to the bed and held her as Ororo twitched back the covers.

                "It's larger," Jean said. "This is going to be her room from now on. Charles wanted to make sure you'd be comfortable if you were planning on keeping a bedside vigil. Besides, the door to your attic is right beside this room's, so if you want to check on her at night you won't have far to go."

                Ororo smiled and held the covers back as Jean lowered Joey onto the bed. "Thank you."

                Jean fussed a little with the light aluminum stand that held Joey's IV, then left quietly. Ororo pulled the single chair in the room over to the bed. Sitting down on it, she took the book from her pocket, opened it, and began reading again, aloud.

                She had finished that chapter and turned the page to begin another one when a soft sound from the bed alerted her to the fact that Joey was awake. "Hey," she said, putting the book down immediately and leaning forward. "How do you feel?"

                "Weird," Joey said after a moment. "My head feels fuzzy, and my mouth's all dry, and all I can feel below my waist is a bit of tingling."

                "The medication's working, then," Ororo said with a sigh. "Let me get you some water. Lie still until I get back." She hurried off to the bathroom for some water, and returned shortly. She was about to prop Joey up with a few pillows so she could drink when the room door opened, and Hank came in, followed by Jean.

                "How are you doing today?" Hank said, smiling gently.

"Okay, I guess," Joey whispered. "Ororo was about to give me some water. Can I sit up?"

"Oh, no," Hank said hastily, intercepting the pillow Ororo was holding. "You have to lie still. See, the skin between your legs tore when you were…violated…and I had to close it with stitches. If you sit up you might tear them, and anyway, the pressure of your body on the stitches will hurt."

"But…how will I eat, or go to the bathroom?"

"Your IV will supply the nourishment necessary until the stitches come out in a few days. And a straw will be sufficient for you to take in fluids." As he spoke Jean dropped a straw into the cup Ororo held, and Joey raised her head enough to allow her to sip from the straw. After she'd satisfied her thirst, she lay back again. The tiny movement seemed to tire her.

"I would like to take a look at the stitches. Jean, if you will…" Hank reached for the covers at the end of the bed and started to pull them up.

"No!" Joey yelped, struggling to hold the covers down. Ororo sat on the edge of the bed, taking the girl's hand in hers and stroking the tangled brown hair, but Joey refused to calm down. "Please, no, don't look, please…" and she started to sob.

Hank looked at her. "Dear, I am a doctor, there is nothing I haven't seen…" but Jean laid a hand on his arm. He stepped aside with an abstracted look, then left the room.

"All right. You don't want Hank to look, because he's male, right?" Jean said softly as she pulled on a pair of exam gloves. "I'll take a look then. Will that be okay?" Slowly, Joey nodded, and settled back on the bed as Jean tugged the covers back. Ororo felt the light brush of Jean's mind reaching out, and she realized Jean was showing Hank the child's stitches without having him actually in the room. Joey tensed as Jean reached up, but when the redhead asked her if a touch hurt, she shook her head no. Jean dropped the covers. "All right. Relax, now. I'm done." She pulled off the gloves, dropped them in the trashcan, and then sat down in the chair Ororo had vacated. "We have some news for you," she said. "Charles has managed to contact your father, he should be here shortly."

"Papa?" Joey asked, eyes wide. "Papa's coming?" Ororo watched as a mix of emotions crossed her face. Her next words caught Jean completely by surprise. "Do I have to see him?"

"Joey, he's your father," Jean said. "Charles said he sounded shocked and worried over the phone, and he promised to come right away. We understand if you're upset with him, but you still should see him." She stood, straightened the blanket, and patted Joey's shoulder. "He should be here soon. We'll bring him up to see you when he gets here."

She left the room, leaving Joey and Ororo alone. Joey didn't say anything, and Ororo, seeing the turmoil of emotions still crossing Joey's face, decided to give her time to think. She went around the room, raising the blinds and clearing the dust off the furniture.

There was a gentle tap on the door, and Ororo said, "Come in."

Remy walked in, concealing something behind his back. "Hello, chere," he said to her by way of greeting, then turned to Joey. "Hello, _ma petite fleur_. Remy t'ought you might like to see an old frien'." And from behind his back he produced a worn, raggedy white teddy bear. "Remy see dis sittin' on your bed in your room, an' t'ought maybe you like to have him while you stuck in bed."

Joey's eyes had lit up at the sight of the bear, and she reached for it with open arms. "Duffy! How did you get Duffy, _Monsieur_ Remy?"

"Yes, how did you?" Ororo regarded him with a wary expression.

Remy gave her a lopsided grin. "Took a little visit to de neighbors," he told her. "Don' frown, 'Ro, nobody see dis t'eif climbing de tree into her window." He jerked his thumb backward toward the door. "Brought a buncha her clot'es too. Jean sortin' out what don't fit. But I t'ought maybe she feel better if she have some o' de t'ings she like while she here, _non_?"

A slow, reluctant smile spread across Ororo's face. "I guess so. Remy, do you do things just to see if my heart will stop?"

"_Non, chere_. Remy know he can make your heart stop wit'out doin' not'ing." He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers before walking out of the room, letting the door close behind him softly.

Ororo was glad her chocolate skin hid the blush Remy's words and touch had created. Joey watched him leave, interested, then watched Ororo for a moment. "You like him," she said finally. "Is he your boyfriend?"

Ororo swallowed, quite hard. "No," she said, hesitantly, then sighed and decided for the truth. "We did 'go out' a few weeks ago. But the relationship didn't work out, and we decided to remain friends."

Joey opened her mouth to say something else, then stopped quickly. Ororo sat down by her bed in the chair again and took one of her hands. "What did you want to ask me?"

"It's kinda personal," Joey whispered, her eyes glued to her teddy bear.

"Child, I will answer it if I can," Ororo said. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Did you ever…" Joey swallowed. "I mean, did Monsieur Remy and you…ever…well…did you see him…undressed?"

Ororo again opted for the truth. Maybe, if she was honest in her replies, she could paint a different picture of men and sex for Joey than this ugly incident had already created in her mind. "Yes, I have," she said. "We have slept together as well."

Joey looked horrified. "You mean he…put his….in you? It hurts!"

Ororo tried to compose her thoughts. The rape had been traumatic, and she had to remind herself that a child going through it would look at intimate relationships from that point of view. She didn't know it could be pleasurable. "It did not," she said, a blush involuntarily coloring her cheeks at the thought of what it _had_ felt like. "Joey, when your partner is someone who cares about you and wants to make you happy, it doesn't hurt. If you were in bed with someone you loved, and who loved you, it wouldn't have hurt as much. It was traumatic this time because Mr. Hunt didn't care about you, and all he wanted to do was hurt you. There are some men, Joey, bad men, who gain pleasure from hurting other people. Like Mr. Hunt, all they want is to hurt you. Most people go through life without enduring the ordeal you went through; I only wish you hadn't gone through it." She thought for a moment. "If you'd been a little older, with your first experience behind you, it also wouldn't have hurt as much."

"Why?" Joey asked.

"You were still a virgin, Joey. When he raped you, he tore through that thin membrane that protects your body from outside invaders. That hurts. It also was the cause of a lot of that bleeding."

"So if I find someone who cares about me it'll be different?" When Ororo nodded, Joey sighed. "I'll never find that."

"Give yourself time," Ororo said serenely, smoothing out the wrinkles on the covers. "You have a long life ahead of you. Don't say never. You will someday."

Joey's voice was extremely soft when she said quietly, "Did this ever happen to you?"

Ororo froze. Joey's words had pulled up a memory she had tried to forget; a scared, skinny little street girl submitting to the caress of the master thief she was apprenticed to, much too young and too unprepared. She had been reluctant, but afraid of the man who wanted her body; and so she had done what she had to in order to survive. It had hurt, but it wasn't as traumatic as Joey's had been. "Not quite the same way as you experienced it, but yes, it did," she finally said, very softly. "I was about your age, maybe a little younger. I was working for the man who took me, and I was afraid to resist. I let him do what he wanted. It was probably easier for me than you, however; I didn't fight. If I had, he would probably have hurt me badly for refusing."

"If I hadn't fought him…would he have hurt me less?"

"I don't know," Ororo said to her. "I don't know if Mr. Hunt just wanted your body, or if he really wanted to cause you pain. If he'd really wanted to hurt you, fighting him probably saved your life. And so did running away." She leaned forward and kissed Joey's forehead gently. "I am glad you trusted us enough to come here for help."

"I didn't have anywhere else to go," Joey said. "There was no one else at the house but him. And you've been kind to me."

"I care about you," Ororo said. "You're a very special, unique little girl, and I'm honored to know you." She leaned forward and brushed her lips against Joey's forehead again. As she did, she heard the door behind her open.

A man rushed into the room. He was dressed impeccably, but there was a worried, distracted look on his face, and he ran to Joey's bedside. "Joette, oh, Baby, Baby, what happened, oh, God…" and he wrapped Joey in his arms in a crushing hug. He half-pulled Joey upright to do it, and Ororo laid a hand on his arm. "Mr. LeFevre, please, she needs to lie down, she shouldn't sit up…" And at just that moment Joey cried out in pain.

"Papa…ow, put me down, you're hurting me… And she looked at Ororo, tears in her eyes. "Something hurts down there, Ororo, please make it stop…"

Ororo helped her lie back down, then shoved Mr. LeFevre out of the way and pulled up the covers at the end of the bed. What she saw made her heart almost stop. "Jean!" She called, knowing Jean and Charles were likely waiting on the other side of that door. Jean pushed the door open and came in, followed closely by Charles, and she looked at what Ororo was indicating. "Just a little bleeding from the stitches, it's nothing serious," she said, grabbing a towel from a nearby chair and sliding it under Joey's hips. "But Mr. LeFevre, she _must not sit up._ I thought I made that clear when we brought you up here."

"I forgot," he said, slightly chastened. "I saw Joette, and I just wanted to hug her. Baby," he said to her, sitting in the chair beside the bed, "I'm sorry. I'm making arrangements for an ambulance to come and move you back to the house, so you can recover in your own room instead of infringing on these people's hospitality. Don't worry, Mrs. Seward can keep an eye on you, and I promise, I'll make Mr. Hunt pay for what he's done…"

"I have to go? I can't stay here?" Joey looked, panicked, at Ororo. "You don't want me here?"

"Of course we do," Ororo said gently, taking the girl's hand. "Don't worry. We'll work it out with your father." She looked at Mr. LeFevre.

"No, we won't," Mr. LeFevre stood, facing Ororo squarely, disregarding the distress he was causing Joey. "I appreciate everything you've done, but she is my daughter, and I will care for her--"

"Like you cared for me before?" Joey spoke hotly, her face flushed and tears still falling down her cheeks. "How could you even invite a man like that to live me in your own house? You don't care about me, Papa, you think I'm just a 'responsibility'. I heard you tell that to Mrs. Seward when you brought her home to meet me! If you really cared about me you wouldn't have hired that awful Mrs. Seward, you would never have told Mr. Hunt that he could live me without knowing what he was like, and you would have come to see me more often! If you cared about me you would have sent me the birthday money you promised. You would have given Mrs. Seward money for my clothes. This wouldn't have happened if you really cared about me! I hate you, Papa! I hate you!" She stopped then, because she was sobbing hysterically and couldn't get any more words out.

Ororo knelt beside her bed. "Shhh, Joey, shhh. It's all right. We'll work it out with your father. You can stay as long as you want. It'll be fine. Lie down, now. Try to relax." Out the corner of her eye she saw Jean injecting something into the girl's IV tube, and moments later the child was asleep. Ororo straightened the bedcovers, wiped Joey's wet cheeks with the edge of the sheet, then stood and said, 'We need to talk, Mr. LeFevre."

The man was still frozen by the bed. "What did she mean by all that?" he said.

Charles spoke for the first time. "Perhaps we should continue this discussion downstairs," he said gently. "Things have gone on in your absence that you may not know about, Henry. Ororo has been in almost daily contact with Joey; she can tell you what happens as well as Joey can. There are some major changes you need to make with your household, Henry, before you take Joey home." He gestured to the door. "Let's continue this discussion in my study."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

They sat down in the study, Charles, Ororo, Hank, and Joey's father, and Ororo commenced to tell him what had gone on in his absence. She was still angry at him for not heeding Jean's warnings when he came in, and thereby caused Joey more pain, but as the conversation wore on she softened a bit. He had no idea of what had really gone on in his house.

"I didn't know," Henry moaned, slumped over in his chair, his face buried in his hands. "Oh, God, I didn't know. Anita Seward came so highly recommended by the agency, she'd been with two previous families, and she seemed to like Joey…I didn't know she would beat my daughter like that." He raised his head. "I sent Anita instructions that she was to withdraw five hundred dollars from the account I set up to take care of household expenses when Joey's birthday came around. When I received the account statement I checked to see that it had been taken out, and it had. I didn't call to make sure Joette got it. I never thought she would go against my wishes." He looked crestfallen. "I saw that money was being taken from the account, and I did send a few letters asking her about some expense or another, but she told me she had bought Joette new clothes, or a new CD player, or another plant for her greenhouse. I never thought to ask Joette."

"Joey," Ororo said softly. "She prefers to be called Joey."

"Joey," he said. "I'll remember."

"Where did Mr. Hunt come from?" Jean leaned forward. Her tone was soft, but her eyes were hard. "How could you let a man like that live with your daughter? You're empathic, when you saw him you should have known…"

"I never saw him!" Henry got up out of his chair and paced the room, coming to a stop finally by the tall window. 'Anita said her brother had just recently moved to New York, and he hadn't found a place to stay yet. She asked me if I would mind if he stayed for a few days with her until he found an apartment. I was stupid; I said yes." He drew in a ragged breath. "I didn't know he was still there. I never asked. I don't know why." He turned to them, and he looked hopeless, defeated. "How badly is she hurt? Why did she scream when I picked her up?"

Jean sighed. "She was torn badly when he raped her. We had to hold the flesh together with stitches while it heals. She's not in any condition to be moved."

"Oh my poor Baby," he sat down, hard. After a moment he raised his head again. "You really wouldn't mind if she stayed here, Charles? We've kind of lost touch over the years, and I don't want to presume on your hospitality--"

"She may stay as long as she likes, Henry," Charles said. "Ororo thinks of her almost like a little sister. As we have doctors living here as well, she will have better medical care than she would in a hospital, or even at your home with a trained nurse. Love is the thing she needs most right now to heal, both physically and emotionally, and she will get that here. I doubt she really hates you, Henry. She has just been through an extremely traumatic experience; she does not want to see any man right now. It will take her a while to get over that."

There was a knock on the study door, and Xavier called, "Come."

Scott opened the door. "Charles. Mrs. Seward just rang the doorbell. She wants to speak to you."

"What does she want?"

Scott made a face. 'She said she's aware that her 'charge', as she calls Joey, ran here last night, She's convinced that Joey's told us some ridiculous story to get us to feel sorry for her and let her stay." He hesitated. "She's also accompanied by a man."

"Hunt!" Joey's father surged out of his chair. "I'll kill the son of a--"

"Henry," Xavier said sharply. "I want to hear what kind of excuse they have for Joey looking the way she does. Jean, perhaps you could escort Henry to the kitchen and give him some refreshment--"

"No!" Henry said. "I want to stay. Please. I'll hide, in a closet or something…but I want to know what they're going to say."

Xavier regarded him for a moment, then he said, "Jean, would you take the spare wheelchair out of the closet, please?" Henry installed himself in the closet and closed the door just as Scott brought Mrs. Seward and Mr. Hunt in.

"Mr. Xavier, I presume?" Mrs. Seward said haughtily. Xavier nodded slightly.

"Just so. What can I do for you?" he said.

"My name is Anita Seward, and this is my brother Gregory Hunt. We live on the property adjoining yours," she said. "I have charge of a little girl, my employer's child. Last night, after a minor disagreement we had with her over her unseemly behavior toward my brother, she ran out of the house in a temperamental fit and has not yet returned. I believe she may be hiding on your grounds, or maybe somewhere in your house. I am not sure what kind of story she has told you in order for you to allow her to stay, but I assure you it is all lies and I would like her returned immediately."

"Indeed. Will it surprise you to know, Mrs. Seward, that I believe what she has said over what you have just told me, and that I have not the slightest intention of giving her over to you, even if she were in a condition to be moved, which she isn't?"

Mrs. Seward narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, she's in no condition to be moved?"

"I meant exactly what I said, Mrs. Seward. You weren't home last night, you have no idea what your brother actually did to your 'charge', as you term her?"

A flicker of alarm crossed Mrs. Seward's face, but she composed herself. 'My brother said that she came onto him. When he rebuffed her advances, she had a temper tantrum and ran out of the house. My brother wouldn't lie to me."

"Oh, wouldn't he," Xavier said evenly. "What about it, Mr. Hunt? It looks like perhaps your sister might be wrong in her blind confidence in you. Shall I tell her what you really did? Shall I tell her you beat Joey with the yardstick kept in her closet? Shall I tell her you chased her out to her greenhouse, the _one place_ she always counted on for privacy? Shall I tell her how you whipped a defenseless thirteen-year-old girl with your belt for refusing to hold still for you? Shall I tell your sister that you brutally _raped_ her charge there in the cold, after she was stunned by the beating? Shall I tell her how you tore the child's body open, ripping her most sensitive skin apart when you forced into her? And do either of you know how she must feel right now, knowing that something precious to her, something she would normally have given to someone she loves someday--was ripped away, irretrievably lost? That she now lies in a room upstairs, confined to bed for a week, because you tore her up so badly she needed stitches to close the tear?" His voice had gotten colder, harder, as he spoke, and the anger swirling around the room made the two people in front of him cringe in their chairs.

Ororo and Jean looked at each other. Charles was _angry._ They'd almost never seen him get this angry. He was unconsciously projecting, and that wasn't a good sign.

No…wait…Charles wasn't projecting, it was the man in the closet. They'd forgotten Joey's father was an empath!

Henry burst out of the closet, unable to contain his own anger anymore. He rushed at Hunt, grabbed a fistful of the other man's jacket, and slammed the man's back against the hard, solid wood door of Xavier's study. "How dare you come in here and lie to my face?!" he hissed at the man. "How dare you hurt my daughter and then come here and demand that she be given back to you? What would you do when you got her back? Take her back, tell her not to tell anyone what happened and beat her until she promised to keep silent? Continue to live in my house, and, since you'd already taken her once, continue to rape her every day, every night, until you broke her spirit and she committed suicide? How would you explain it to me when I got back? Or were you planning to take her and run away, and never return, and I'd never know what happened to her, to my little girl?"

"You didn't care about her anyway!" Hunt finally whined. "You didn't care when my Sis beat her with the yardstick, you didn't care that she was starving her and forcing to go without sleep and making her do housework! At least she gets some human contact from me!"

"Your kind of contact she doesn't need!" Henry was furious. "Charles, if you will call the police, I will file charges against them myself. I'll spare you the trouble of doing it." Xavier reached for the telephone on his desk.

Henry was standing by the bed, staring down at the sleeping girl, when Ororo pushed open the door silently. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Social Services chose to leave her here indefinitely," he said to the tall silver-haired woman. "I haven't been much of a father to her."

Ororo looked at him quietly for a moment. "You were busy," she surprised herself by saying. "And the agency did refer her to you. And you had no way of knowing Mr. Hunt had just gotten out of jail for statutory rape and pedophilia." She sighed. "It will not be forever, Mr. LeFevre. They simply wish to make sure that the environment she goes home to is a safer, more secure one than she had."

"I know," he said. "I don't blame them. I went with the social worker back to the house to see what her room looked like. It's so bare, Miss Munroe. Empty. She had none of the things Anita told me she'd bought for my little girl. No radio, no music, no phone…even her closet was half-bare. And the clothes that were left didn't look like they'd fit her." Ororo decided not to tell him that Remy had burgled his house the previous night for Joey. "And her greenhouse…everything was broken. All those plants she spent all that time caring for…they were all broken, all gone. I only managed to save one plant." He gestured to the small terra-cotta pot sitting on her bedside table, where a slightly wilted iris bud sat tightly closed among its leaves. "I hope she forgives me someday."

"She will," Ororo said quietly.

He looked at her. "I have to go back to the house. The lawyers want all the paperwork for Anita's hiring and firing, and I have to figure out what she did with all that money she's been taking and supposedly using for Joey. I transferred the account into Charles' name, so he can get whatever she needs without having to use his own." He turned to her. "I wanted to say thank you. Before I forgot. Joey's lucky she has a friend like you. I'm very lucky she has a friend she could count on. I don't want to know what would have happened last night if she didn't know she could come to you for help." There were tears in his eyes.

Ororo hugged him gently, and watched as he turned and left the room with slow steps. Still thinking about him, she went over to the plant and checked it to see if it needed watering. It didn't.

She studied the iris bud. A Joette iris. Slightly wilted, but with care and attention, it would become a beautiful little flower. Just like Joey would. What was it Remy had called her? _Ma petite fleur_? A little flower? Ororo smiled. A fitting nickname for a girl named after a flower.

Yes, Joey would recover, and eventually bloom into a lovely young girl. Ororo smiled. She would look forward to that.

Okay, that's it for this one. I hope you all liked it, it's sort of like my 'Secrets and Shadows' story, except that this one was a little more graphic. Okay, maybe a bit.

Thank you all for reading, and especially for reviewing. Kitsu LeBeau, many thanks to you for all the enthusiastic praise; thanks also go out to Dazzler and Storm II, for encouragement, praise, and reviews. 'Last One Standing' will continue to go up, and after that the story I'm working on right now will go up; 'Knight and Squire', a Logan/Jubes A/U fic (yes, another one.) Enjoy the stories, and I hope to see some of you there! (if you're Logan/Jubes fan, that is.)


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